Startup case study (4/4): How can I keep my employees loyal to my company?
Through our k-startup initiative, we offer customers a quick health check that highlights commercial law, tax law, and social insurances matters. For this, we have also collected some case studies. Case study 4/4 focuses on the topic of commercial law.
A founder of an IT service company would like to make their employees shareholders in the company, in order to motivate them and keep them loyal to the company in the medium to long term. Especially because they cannot afford normal market salary payments at present. In addition, the shareholder employees would benefit from a tax-exempt capital gain in the event of a potential
successful sale of the start-up.
If the start-up was able to sell its shares to a large Internet group, all shareholders would make substantial capital gains. Suddenly, letters would arrive on the doorstep with high demands from pension funds (pension contributions) and tax offices (income taxes), because part of the capital gains were classified as salaries/bonuses for past work.
We therefore recommend developing effective employee stakeholder plans early on, with the goal of organising the type and scope of employee shareholdings, and, last but not least, keeping the social contributions and tax law consequences within limits for the shareholders and employees.
With our know-how in the area of start-ups, these and other risks can be identified and resolved in good time. Working together with you, we can decide the best solution and strategy for you to ensure the good health of your business. For more on this subject, refer to our earlier article Employee Participation (link).
Are you facing a similar issue, or do you have another situation where you need help? We are looking forward to your inquiry. More case studies can be found at the Quick-Health-Check download on k-startup.ch.
