It is one of the requests made to the new government, but what exactly do they consist of?
If you usually follow the political news, you will see that the new President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, has assured that he wants Spain to be a country of startups and entrepreneurs. You will also have heard that, to achieve this, he wants to dedicate specific legislation to them that contemplates their singularities. In response to these announcements, many startups have launched various public messages pointing in one direction or another. And in almost all these requests there is a measure that is constantly repeated : the facilitation of stock options.
What are stock options?
Very roughly, stock options are the packages of shares that companies usually give to their employees in order to supplement their annual salary. Tradition, usually, dictated that this type of practice was carried out in large companies that are listed on stock exchanges.
What legislation do you currently have?
Today, in Spain, a stock option is considered to be something similar to a return on work and an economic good, as well as a moderately safe value. Therefore, if a person who has stock options from a company goes to work in another country, on their departure they must contribute for them.
What are startups asking for?
Since the rise of the startup movement in Spain, companies of this type have adapted their stock option model: faced with a lack of capital or the inability to pay large salaries, many startups supplement their employees’ salaries with company shares. The key is that, compared to traditional stock options, which are usually more or less stable, startups claim that their shares can be worth a lot… or nothing. For this reason, they consider it unfair to have to pay taxes on shares that, even if they were given at a high valuation, can lose their value in a very short time.
What would they allow Spanish startups?
A few years ago, stock options were useful for companies that were just born with capital; Today they are used for those startups that, with or without capital, want to hire professionals who usually have a very high salary than the one offered to them.
