[NEXT] Lunch & Learn: How to Navigate ESOPs in 2026

For a decade the deal has been simple. You can’t match a corporate salary, so you offer equity. Under the startup concession your hire pays no tax when they receive their options, and when they eventually sell, the 50% CGT discount takes half the gain off the table.

May’s Federal Budget removed that discount for gains from 1 July 2027. A carve-out for innovative startups is now in draft legislation, and it depends on whether your company passes a test Treasury is still finalising. So when you offer your next key hire 1% instead of a bigger salary, can you tell them what that 1% will be taxed at?

Get the structure right and equity is still the best hiring tool you have. Get it wrong and your first employees inherit a tax bill where the upside was meant to be.

Join us for a session on structuring employee equity under the new rules, and what they mean for founders’ own shares at exit.

Toby Eggleston leads the Australian tax practice at Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer, where he advises on employee ownership, venture capital and private equity. He has written submissions to Treasury on employee share scheme reform. Expect the working mechanics of the current rules and the draft carve-out, with the predictions left out.

We’ll get into:

• ​How the startup ESS concession works today, and why it still lets a seed-stage company hire above its cash
• ​Options, shares or loan-funded plans, and how the right choice shifts once the 50% CGT discount stops being automatic
• ​What the Budget changed from 1 July 2027, and which gains stay under the old rules
• ​The Innovative Business CGT Concession: where the draft stands now, and the early signs of whether your company will qualify
• ​What founders holding shares personally or through a family trust should check before an exit. Sized for idea-to-seed companies making their first few hires.

Who should attend?

• Founders about to make a key hire who plan to close the salary gap with equity
• Founders who set up an ESOP from a template and aren’t sure it survives the new rules
• Founders who heard the CGT discount is gone and haven’t worked out what that means for their own shares
• Early employees holding options and wondering what they’re worth after tax