Revenue eBrief No. 037/22
18 February 2022
Share Schemes 2021 filing obligations
Revenue would like to remind employers operating share schemes and trustees of certain approved share schemes of their obligation to meet their filing requirements by the due date of 31 March 2022, in respect of 2021.
The return to be filed is dependent on the type of share scheme, which is summarised below for convenience.
| Form |
Share Scheme/Details |
Obligation to file in respect of 2021 |
| Form ESA |
Restricted Share Units (RSUs)
Discounted/Free/Matching Shares
Employee Share Purchase Plans (ESPP)
Restricted Shares
Convertible Securities
Forfeitable Shares
Phantom Shares
Stock Appreciation Rights
Growth/Hurdle/Flowering Shares
Other shares
|
If during the reporting period shares were granted/awarded, vested or disposed of; or a cash payment equivalent of shares was made. |
|
Form RSS1
|
Detail of unapproved share options and any other rights to acquire shares or assets which are awarded to employees and Directors. |
If during the reporting period, unapproved share options were granted, exercised, transferred or released. |
| Form KEEP1 |
Details of qualifying KEEP share options. |
If during the reporting period, KEEP options were granted, exercised, transferred or released. |
| Form ESS1 |
Details of Approved Profit Sharing (APSS) schemes. |
Must be filed for each year of assessment. |
| Form SRSO1 |
Details of Save As You Earn (SAYE) schemes. |
Must be filed for each year of assessment. |
| Form ESOT1 |
Details of approved Employee Share Ownership Trust (ESOT) schemes. |
Must be filed for each year of assessment. |
Nil returns
Note that trustees of approved share schemes are required to file an annual form (ESS1/SRS01/ESOT1) for each year of assessment. This includes the filing of nil returns where no reportable events have taken place during the year in question.
For all other share schemes, there is no requirement to file a nil return if no reportable events have taken place during that period.
Common filing issues/errors
When completing the relevant returns, filers should pay special attention to the following:
- All monetary values should be reportable in Euros - the use of non-Euro currencies is not permitted.
- Leaving blank rows in between blocks of data - this may prompt an error message in Form ESA.
- Unit share price should only be used if specifically asked to do so in the return. When asked to include total market values, the total shareholding value should be entered.
- When copying and pasting from a different file into the return, attention should be given to:
- not to transfer scientific or non-numeric characters into the numeric fields of the form, or
- the use of the correct decimal separator, i.e. decimal points rather than decimal commas.
Detailed information including explanatory notes on the completion and filing of the relevant forms together with common filing issues are included in Chapter 15 of the Share Schemes manual.