Product Details - ESS Reporter

Employee Share Scheme Reporting - More Details

The information below is sourced from the ATO website and more details can be found here.

If you provide your employees or their associates with ESS interests under an employee share scheme (ESS) you have certain reporting obligations.

An ESS interest is either:

a beneficial interest in a share of a company
a right to acquire a beneficial interest in a share of a company.

The interests can be shares, stapled securities, or rights (including options) to acquire shares or stapled securities.

The ESS rules require you to provide us - and your employee - with details of your employee's ESS interests. This page explains what you need to provide to us and to your employees, and when you need to provide it.

If an associate of your employee acquires ESS interests which are provided for employment or services, the ESS rules require the employee - rather than the associate - to include the discount in their assessable income.

ESS Statement
You must give your employee an ESS statement if:

they or their associates, have acquired ESS interests under a taxed-upfront ESS at a discount during the financial year
a deferred taxing point for ESS interests acquired under a tax-deferred ESS, or a cessation time for shares and rights acquired before 1 July 2009, happened or could have happened in the financial year
- the latest possible deferred taxing point for these interests was 30 June 2019
- this means there will be no income reportable on these interests in the 2019-20 income year and onwards
a start-up concession acquisition event occurred, you must provide your employee with the following information about ESS interests acquired during the income year
- number of ESS interests acquired
- market value of ESS interests acquired
- acquisition price of ESS interests that are shares
- exercise price of ESS interests that are rights
- acquisition date of the ESS interests.

You must provide the ESS statement to your employee by 14 July after the end of the financial year. The statement will help your employee complete their tax return.

An administrative penalty applies to providers who fail to provide the statement.

The information required on the ESS statement includes, but is not limited to, the following:

the discount for ESS interests acquired under each type of taxed-upfront scheme
the discount for ESS interests acquired under a tax-deferred scheme if a taxing point happened during the financial year
the discount for shares and rights acquired before 1 July 2009 if a cessation time occurred during the financial year
the total TFN amount withheld from discounts during the financial year.

When determining and reporting the discount at the deferred taxing point to your employee, you must take account of the 30-day rule if you know the ESS interests were disposed of by the employee.

Reporting to the ATO
Lodgments for the 2015-16 onwards ESS annual report will only be accepted electronically.

The ESS annual report you provide to us must include, but is not limited to, the following information for each employee participating in an ESS and for each ESS that the employee is participating in:

plan identifier - a reference that makes a plan unique within all plans offered by you
acquisition date - the date the ESS interests were acquired
plan date - the date a taxing point happens to an ESS interest; for a taxed-upfront scheme, this will be the acquisition date; for a tax-deferred scheme, this will be the deferred taxing point
TFN amounts withheld from discounts on ESS interests if a taxing point arose during the financial year.

When to report
Your Employee Share Scheme annual report is due 14 Aug each year.

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Employee Share Scheme Reporting - More Details