All employee share schemes need to be registered with HMRC in order to qualify for the tax advantages, and an annual return must be submitted to HMRC for each registered share scheme by 6 July following the tax year end.
This annual return must be submitted online through the ERS system, even if there is no activity in the scheme during the tax year. The penalties for not submitting the ERS annual return are similar to those for a late SA return: £100 for missing the deadline and £300 if the return is still outstanding after three months.
In the case of Talkative Ltd v HMRC the Company registered two employee share schemes in January and March 2018, but failed to submit the annual returns for these schemes by 6 July 2018. The £100 penalty notices were issued on 17 July 2018. As neither annual return had been submitted by 6 October 2018, further £300 penalties were issued for both schemes.
At the FTT the company’s accountant claimed he wasn’t aware that annual returns were required. He also said that no return was filed because no notice to file was received. Neither of these arguments was well received by the FTT, which upheld the penalties.
Unlike for SA returns, a notice to file is not required to be issued to trigger an obligation to file an ERS return. The adviser should have been aware of the need to file the ERS returns for the share schemes which were only registered a few months earlier.
If you have registered employee share schemes, make sure the ERS returns are submitted on time. If the share scheme is no longer needed, deregister it by following the steps set out in the link below.