Taxpayer
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RE: Tax on change from exercise of approved share options
My options certificates describe each grant of options as a "HMRC Approved Executive Share Option Scheme". Page ERSM300000 of the HMRC internal manual says this is now known as a CSOP Scheme, and it says more information about these schemes is given in ETASSUM40000, but I am struggling to find answers to my questions there. The page that you shared links to HS287, but that doesn't answer my questions either. Now that you know what type of options I exercised, can you please either answer my questions directly or tell me which specific pages in the HMRC internal manual provide the answers? -
Tax on change from exercise of approved share options
I've noticed a few mistakes in my calculations of my 2018/19 and 2020/21 CGT liability. So I'm trying to recalculate what I should have paid, so I can report the error. But the one part of the calculations that I'm not sure about is how to incorporate the small amounts of cash that I received when I exercised share options. I exercised approved share options in my former company in between the 2017/18 and 2019/20 tax years, and I was told that there would be no income tax or NICs to pay, because their aggregate exercise price was less than £30k. In two cases, my exercise instruction was that the provider should sell enough shares to cover the exercise price, and then give me the remaining shares. When they carried out each sale, the proceeds slightly exceeded the exercise price, so they sent me a cheque for the difference. Let's use the following example, to make my questions concrete: Suppose that I have the option to acquire 110 shares at £1/share, and that the market price is £12/share when I exercise the option. The provider covers the cost of the option by selling 10 shares for a total of £120. They take the £110 exercise cost and give me the remaining 100 shares plus £10 change. My questions are: 1. Is the £10 considered to be a capital gain? 2. If it is a capital gain, should I just add it to the other capital gains that I incurred in the tax year in which I received it, or does it need to be associated with the acquisition or disposal of the 100 shares that I received? 3. If it isn't a capital gain, does it incur some other tax? 4. Is it correct to use £0 as the cost of acquiring the 100 shares in my capital gains calculation?