Tax issues regarding change from Phantom Shares to Equity Shares
03.08.2022
Employee participation programs are an important instrument for motivating employees of startups. Actually, startups often grant phantom shares (= virtual shares) to their employees. These virtual shares are like an additional payment claim based on certain parameters (e.g proceeds from the sales of shares by the shareholders). The employees have no legal or contractual shareholder rights. From a tax point of view these payments are treated like bonus-payments.
von Christoph Puchner und Bianca Weigelhofer