QUALIFYING CRITERIA
There are various conditions to be met for both the company and employee to qualify for the EMI scheme. The company must:
- Be independent (they must not be subsidiary of or controlled by another company)
- Trading mainly or wholly in the UK
- Have fewer than 250 full-time employees
- Have gross assets of £30 million or less
- Satisfy the gross asset test
Companies will not qualify if they work in excluded activities. These include:
- Property Development
- Provision of legal of accountancy services
- Banking, insurance, debt-factoring or money-lending
- Ship building, coal or steel production
- Farming or market gardening
- Operating or managing hotels, nursing homes residential care homes or managing property used as any of these
Employees will qualify for the scheme if:
- They work for the company for at least 25 hours per week, or 75% of their working time per week (an employees working time includes employment and self-employment)
- They do not have a material interest in the business (more than 30% of the share capital of the company)
The above are general conditions relating to the Enterprise Management Scheme (EMI) and each company should be reviewed on a case by case basis.