Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003 Schedule 5 paragraph 25

The employment requirement

Paragraph 25 of Schedule 5 sets out who qualifies as an eligible employee in relation to the relevant company for the purposes of the enterprise management incentives (EMI) share option scheme.

• To be eligible, an individual must be an employee of the relevant company.
• Where the relevant company is a parent company, the individual may alternatively be employed by a qualifying subsidiary of that parent company.
• There is no requirement for the individual to hold a specific role or seniority — employee status is sufficient.
• The employment link must be with either the relevant company itself or, where applicable, a qualifying subsidiary within the same group.