Aandelenoptieregeling

Reactie

Vraag1

GitLab welcomes the proposed change to the tax law covering taxation of stock options. The proposed changes support the result aimed at: solving the liquidity issue that employers and its team members encounter upon the exercise of stock options. When there is no liquid market yet for the employer’s shares, deferral of taxation at an exercise of stock options solves two problems in GitLab’s opinion.
The first would be the increase of our team member experience. Gitlab team members do not have to wait until liquidity is provided by buyers. Nor do GitLab team members have to fund the tax which is due at an early exercise of the stock options. Secondly, the proposed legislation helps to cut employer’s costs, which would support start-ups to survive the critical beginning years while keeping its key team members on board.

Overall GitLab sees this as a positive change to the current tax treatment of stock options in the Netherlands. A few additional topics that would be helpful to have clarity on: What if the start-up does not become a public company, or gets sold to private equity investors? What happens when team members leave while they have exercised their stock options? How does this new law take into account team members that exercised their options and leave the Netherlands pre-IPO stage?