I've had some good advice and spend some $K's on this. General vibe: 1. Create a unit trust. 2. Allocate employees units in the trust 3. The trust buys shares or options (it doesn't matter which) from the company, with money loaned from the company. No tax event occurs because the shares/options are acquired for face value and the money comes as a loan from the company to the trust. 4. When the employees want to sell their shares or exercise their options, they either pay off the loan or the company pays for the loan with after tax money as part of their employee salary/consideration and the employee is taxes as normal income for the conversion. This hopefully won't be a problem because at that time they're selling the shares, so they have money in their hands and the tax bill, while sucky, isn't bankrupting. 5. You get a tax ruling from the ATO for the trust deed and the arrangement so it is locked in and the ATO validates it as legit.
I think there is an opportunity for a single central trust to be set up in AU and administered for a small fee to handle this for all Aussie startups. LMK if anyone wants to take that idea and run with it and I'll pass you all I've learned and some intros to the folks who make the mechanics happen... Geoff On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 05:35, Mick Liubinskas (Pollenizer) < [email protected]> wrote: > Anyone had any luck with a good system to lock away some ESOP in > advance in Australia? > > It really does suck that we don't have better support for a key > currency of startups. Any govt types listening? > > Mick "Trigger Price" Liubinskas > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Silicon Beach > Australia mailing list. Vist http://siliconbeachaustralia.org for more > > Forum rules > 1) No lurkers! It is expected that you introduce yourself. > 2) No jobs postings. You can use http://siliconbeachaustralia.org/jobs > > > To post to this group, send email to > [email protected] > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected] > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/silicon-beach-australia?hl=en?hl=en > -- *Geoff McQueen* CEO <http://www.affinitylive.com/?utm_source=signature&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Signature> Cell: +1 650.450.4384 Skype: geoffmcqueen GTalk: [email protected] <http://www.affinitylive.com/tour?utm_source=signature&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Signature><http://www.affinitylive.com/product/demo?utm_source=signature&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Signature><https://signup.affinitylive.com/?utm_source=signature&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Signature> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Silicon Beach Australia mailing list. Vist http://siliconbeachaustralia.org for more Forum rules 1) No lurkers! It is expected that you introduce yourself. 2) No jobs postings. You can use http://siliconbeachaustralia.org/jobs To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/silicon-beach-australia?hl=en?hl=en
