Liberal Government Abandons Proposed Changes to Taxation of Employee Stock Options

On March 22, 2016, the Liberal government delivered its first budget ("Budget 2016"), which focuses on growing the middle class.  Notably absent from Budget 2016 were anticipated changes to the tax treatment of employee stock option benefits, which formed part of the Liberal party’s 2015 election platform, as previously discussed in our earlier updates on this topic (Proposed Changes to Tax Treatment of Stock Options Under New Liberal Government and Government Clarifies Grandfathering of Existing Stock Options, dated November 9, 2015 and November 20, 2015, respectively).