24 May 2016 New Zealand's employee share scheme proposals set to change current framework The New Zealand Inland Revenue Department (IRD) released an issues paper on May 12, which sets out a number of proposals for taxing employee share schemes (ESS).
ESS have been under the spotlight in New Zealand as the IRD identified that some benefits derived from ESS are not bought to taxation, and are therefore being treated as a tax free capital gain. The issues paper broadly seeks to align the tax treatment of ESS with cash payments, and has addressed the IRD's concerns by proposing the introduction of a new tax framework which would distinguish between conditional and unconditional ESS. A Tax Alert prepared by EY's People Advisory Services group, and attached below, provides additional details. ———————————————
ATTACHMENT Full text of Tax Alert 2016-0910 Document ID: 2016-0910 | 
