Payments are taxable

The taxpayer was made redundant from the London branch of BNP Paribas in October 2005. Under the terms of his redundancy his shares in the bank’s share incentive plan (SIP) and cash from its cash incentive plan (CIP) were released.

The issues before the First-tier Tribunal were whether the SIP and CIP were tax-approved plans so that the shares and cash were exempt from tax and National Insurance.

The tribunal found that the evidence against the plans being tax approved was ‘overwhelming’.

The taxpayer could produce no evidence of his participation in the plans there was correspondence from HMRC’s Employee Share Schemes Unit that the bank had not applied for tax approval and the rules of one of the SIPs made it clear that the plan would not be capable of receiving approval.

There was no UK...