Employment Shares and Options

[dougj]

Hi all, I have a somewhat complicated set of questions - I would appreciate any help!

When I joined the company I work for (4 years ago), I was granted a number of options under the tax advantaged EMI scheme.
I was later (3 years ago) granted more employment options under an unapproved scheme.

Earlier this year I exercised some of the EMI options and I also exercised some of the Unapproved options. In both cases this involved sending a cheque to my company (strike price x number of units) and I received two separate stock certificates. So far so good.

1) Do I need to declare these two exercise events in my self-assessment?
I assume that I need to declare the exercise of the unapproved options and get taxed, under Income Tax, on the difference of the market value of the shares at the date of exercise and the amount I paid. This gets tricky as the company I work for is unlisted, so I do not really know the 'market value at the date of exercise!'. Any ideas?


Currently, the private company I work for is being acquired by a larger, listed company.

During the merger, I am asked to surrender the shares I hold in exchange for a cash Consideration amount.

2) Do I need to declare the surrender (disposal) of shares and the amount I receive to HMRC? (two separate disposal events?). Are these events taxable under CGT or Income Tax?

During the merger, my vested options (both EMI and unapproved) will be surrendered in exchange for a cash consideration amount. Basically the new company is treating un-exercised vested options as being exercised, and is thus buying them back.

3) Is 'disposal of un-exercised options' considered a taxable event? Do I need to declare this event? Is this under Income Tax or Capital Gains Tax?


Finally, during the merger, all my unvested options (EMI and unapproved) will be exchanged for unvested options in the new company.

4) Do I need to declare this exchange of options? How?

That is all - thank you very much, any help appreciated!
I know that I should probably also ask a tax adviser; but the whole 'profit' I will might is small, probably less than £5000 so I'm unsure if worth it (but let me know if you have a different opinion).
I should also note that I've not done a self-assessment before due to PAYE , so this is pretty tricky for me!