Employment Related Securities: annual returns

11 September 2015

HMRC are concerned by the number of cases in which a company has registered a share scheme for the tax year 2014-15 but has not submitted an annual return.

HMRC has said that this could be due to an oversight in filing an annual return, but think there are likely to be many instances where an error has been made in registering a scheme – for example, by duplicating registrations. Where this is the case the system will still require an annual return to be submitted on the Employment Related Securities (ERS) online service.

HMRC are urging companies with share schemes to check that they have submitted an annual return for each scheme they have registered – including schemes that might have been incorrectly set up.

Companies can easily check whether a return has been submitted: Log into the HMRC online service and access the ERS online service. In this section select View Schemes and Arrangements which will display a table of registered schemes. Select the scheme to be checked and on the following page it will show whether the return for 2014/15 has been submitted.

To close a scheme registered in error for 2014/15, once again log into the HMRC online service and access the ERS online service and select View Schemes and Arrangements to display the table of registered schemes. Select the scheme to be closed and on the next screen select 'Enter date of final event'. HMRC recommend in these cases that 6 April 2014 is entered.

There is no need to call HMRC to check whether a return has been submitted.