The European Commission has approved under EU State aid rules the prolongation of the UK Enterprise Management Initiative scheme, which reduces the taxation of employee share options for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). Under the scheme, employees of SMEs benefit from reductions from income tax and/or national insurance contributions, when exercising their share options.
EU State Aid approval for EMI schemes expired on 6 April 2018 and a new approval was eagerly waited for to permit SMEs keep issuing new share options to their best employees in a tax efficient way.