Issue equity overseas to your global teams. Make compliant offers ‍

Whenever you make an option offer to a team member in another country the options will be treated under and subject to local laws (including tax rules) of the country in which the recipient is located.

For example, you may have an Australian company and an option plan based on the Australian legal rules, but if you make an offer to an employee in the USA under that Australian Plan (without making the required changes), it is unlikely that the offer will be compliant under American laws.

It may also mean that the American recipient does not gain any tax benefits from the offer - often, it will mean they gain a tax liability! Another risk is that, by not providing the minimum mandatory information to that employee, the company issuing the offer may be in breach of local laws.

Some companies take the approach of ‘we will make you an offer under our local plan, and you have to work out the tax and validity of the offer in your own country yourself.’ While this approach may work for some, it diminishes the incentivisation and level of comfort that a well established and thought out option plan provides, and also includes the risks mentioned above.

Cake’s new Global package allows employees to receive industry standard offers that really mean a lot to them - why give equity away if the employee doesn’t value it?

Cake has worked closely with its startup-focused legal partners around the world to create a flow that allows the standard local rules to be combined with existing option plans. This allows a company to make compliant offers to recipients overseas. Chat to us to learn more!

Yes - when you make an offer to a team member in another country, the platform will use a customised flow so that a country-specific Offer Letter can be created for that recipients’ country.

For example, if you are making an offer to a team member in the USA, the platform will use the US flow so that details like the type of option, and the required disclosure statements, are provided.

Yes, but if you don’t have one, you can create one in just a few clicks on Cake!

For example, if you’re an Australian company without an ESOP, and you want to make an offer to US recipients, you can quickly create your Australian ‘base’ ESOP on Cake. Then, simply add on the US-specific customisation so that you can make the US offer in a matter of weeks, not months!

The differing tax treatment on option offers across borders is part of what used to make it so tricky! Luckily, Cake has clarified a lot of this information. We also have local tax and legal experts on hand, ready to help you out with any of these questions.

Not all lawyers and accountants understand startup options - in fact, only a few really get it! 

Trying to find a great advisor in another country can be a nightmare. Even if you end up finding one, you’ll often be left blowing in the wind, with the end result being you are still not able to send out the offer because there is still a bunch more to do! 

For this reason, Cake has partnered with local tax and legal experts in each country so that if you have any questions, or if you want to make any changes to your documents, they can jump in and help out right away. Our partners are startup focused and really understand the needs of a startup to make global option plans work, without adding the extra admin and headaches.

Our option plan templates were drafted by our startup focused legal partners in each country. 

Not all advisors understand startup options, and we only partner with those that are experts. 

The templates are designed to suit the majority of startups and their existing plans, however if they don’t suit your needs, or you want to check or change anything, our partners are ready to help out. 

Cake will organise the required option plan valuations through its extensive valuation provider network. 

For example, if you need a 409A valuation, Cake can have that organised and ready through your subscription. 

Disclosure can be a tricky concept, and it varies around the world. Most jurisdictions have ‘exemptions to disclosure’ to allow the offering of options to your team. If you want to check how the disclosure requirements for your options are treated, our local legal partners will be ready to assist. 

Once you’ve set up the new global pool on your Cake account, you can continue to make multiple offers to new team members yourself in just a few clicks. 

The Cake dashboard will guide you through each step and our Customer Success team will be online for any questions along the way. 

The Cake templates are based on the most common types of schemes used in each country. 

For example, in Australia, the majority of startups offer options under the ‘Startup Tax Concession’ so the templates are drafted to comply with those specific rules. In the UK, the scheme is drafted specifically for an ‘EMI’ offer, as this is the most beneficial for the employee. If you have any questions regarding how these schemes may apply to your company, our legal partners will be ready to help.

If you need to make any changes to the offer wording, you can either: 

• Do it yourself through our fully customisable ‘Contract Engine’; or,
• Get our local legal partners to help you out, and then send the documents out for signing and put them to work (with auto-vesting) through Cake. 

Usually no, but lots of startups handle this differently. 

A growing number of startups use an Employee Of Record (EOR) provider to handle all of the employment, payroll and tax for their international employees. This is often the quickest and easiest way to employ an overseas team member, so if you want an introduction to a great EOR provider, just let us know! 

Some startups will incorporate a local entity in the employee’s country, and hire them directly with the assistance of local payroll providers. This is more common if the company is planning on hiring a larger team in that location. 

For others, it will purely be a contractor arrangement, where the contractor may just be getting equity for their services, so all that is needed is an option offer (and perhaps a Contractor Agreement, depending on how it’s structured). 

Our legal templates and process flows are designed to work for the most commonly used tax advantaged option schemes. Depending on the country, certain tax regimes have been designed by governments to allow options, amongst other equity derivatives, to be optimised for tax purposes. Generally, so long as your company and your employees (the option recipients) meet certain requirements, these schemes can benefit your employees when it comes to sharing a piece of the upside in your company’s growth. However, to receive the benefits from these tax-advantaged schemes, certain countries require there to be a direct relationship between the employer and employee. Depending on which countries you choose as part of your package, we will help guide you through these complexities.