Workers in the UK were offered over 200 million worth of free shares as reward incentives the previous year.
As per the yearly IFS ProShare Employees Share survey, there are more than 375,000 who have been provided with shares via Share Incentive Plans each of which was valued at an average of 526.37 pounds.
More than 459 firms participated in the consensus and the results showed that over two million workers had joined some employees’ sharesave plan the previous year. This thereby helped people participating in the Save as You Earn scheme to be in a position to put aside an average of about 102 pounds every month.
John Collison, the Head of IFS ProShare stated that like their studies have revealed, offering the workers free shares would always be a favoured, tax-efficient means of giving the employees incentives at every level.
He pointed out that many a time such free shares were offered in recognition of excellent performances form a specific person or the company in general, though it could also be utilised to ensure that good employees are retained, because there are implications on tax that are attached to selling free shares.
The Financial Times was informed by the Tax Director for the Office of Tax Simplification, Mr. John Whiting that many commercial enterprises were not offering incentives to their employees as there was so much of interminable delays and lengthy paper work involved.
