I own a holding company in which I am considering granting enterprise management incentive (EMI) share options. The holding company has a number of wholly owned trading subsidiaries and also owns 50% of one joint venture company (JVC), an unrelated party owns the other 50%. While I am satisfied that I meet the qualifying criteria to be able to grant the options, a concern has been raised that there may be a problem due to the ownership of the JVC?

Some companies may offer employees enterprise management incentive (EMI) share options. As long as the rules of the scheme are met, there is no income tax or national insurance contributions (NIC) payable on the exercise of the option.