NO FINAL CALL YET ON TAX LIABILITY OF ESOPs

Finance Minister P. Chidambaram said he was open to meeting with industry to decide if the gains arising from Employee Stock Option Plans (ESOPs) should be treated as fringe benefits and taxed at the employer’s end or taken as perquisites and taxed at the employee level. Asserting that ESOPs were not outside the tax ambit, the minister said the method of calculation was yet to be worked out.