TESCO - Tax on Shares

Planeman_2

Can anyone help please? My wife is a retired Tesco ex employee and whist at work she received free 'Tesco Shares in Success' certificates which she now wants to sell.

We have been told that because the shares were given to her as part of her employment, she will not have to pay tax on them.

Can anybody confirm this assumption and are there any limits to this arrangement as she has over 1000 shares to sell.

Many thanks for any help you can provide.

eskbanker

Employee share schemes do generally involve tax concessions but the best place for authoritative information will be the scheme booklet or perhaps its website, does she have access to one or the other?

Woodstok2000

Is it definitely the 'Shares in Success' scheme (from early 2000's, discontinued around 2010), and not the more recent Save as You Earn scheme(s)?

DRS1

So did she get one of these?

11A Shares In Success Invitation TandC.pdf

One thing to look out for is whether the shares are still inside the plan or if they were taken out into her own name. Selling while they are still inside the plan would be tax free (see here Tax and Employee Share Schemes: Share Incentive Plans (SIPs) - GOV.UK). But if she is an ex employee I wonder if the shares are still in the plan.

Just to be clear "because the shares were given to her as part of her employment, she will not have to pay tax on them" would not normally be true. What matters is how they were given to her and if the employer used a tax approved share scheme like a SIP. Even then there will be circumstances when a tax charge (income tax or CGT) and maybe an NI charge can arise.