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A Pile Of Paper
The Inland Revenue are well-known for requiring taxpayers  to fill in long and complicated forms, but this summer they have exceeded all previous records with something called 'Form 42'. This form is supposed to be filled in by companies which have an employee share scheme which doesn't qualify for any of the special Revenue-approved advantages (such as a Share Incentive Plan, or SAYE-linked option scheme). Most employers who have an 'unapproved share scheme' would be aware of it and would know they had to fill in the form.
Then, in mid-June (with a deadline for filing of 6 July), the Revenue made it clear that they regarded any situation where employees received shares in their employer as requiring a Form 42. This would include most straightforward incorporations of new companies - the shareholders usually become directors, so you end up with employees receiving shares in their employer without it being a Revenue-approved scheme.
It's very unlikely that any income tax charges would ever arise on such incorporation-issued shares, so it seemed a good opportunity for the Revenue to say, "actually, we can do without the forms for that sort of transaction". But they didn't - they said that all such share issues had to be reported, with just the minor concession of allowing people until 30 November to report them where the Revenue hadn't specifically asked for a return. The form is 12 pages long, but most incorporations will be dealt with in a few lines.
With luck, by next year the Revenue officials who have to deal with the paper will have made such a protest (if they can be found - they must surely be buried by now, somewhere behind a mountain of paper in Somerset
House) that the Revenue will quietly drop the requirement. But the Revenue's appetite for more and more paper sometimes seems endless. If we have to ask you to sign these forms - believe us, we probably like it even less than you do!
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