EMI itself is not a scam. Whether a company follows through on giving you the options in a reasonable timescale is another thing, and whether the shares are eventually worth anything is another again. As with all things startup option/share related, consider it a lottery ticket with an unknown chance of paying out.
That being said, £50k after all the tax is still better than £0 and if the £50k was paid as a one off bonus, you could pay it into SIPP without paying tax.
I remember when I asked them why I cannot get normal shares? They said that EMI will be better for me because I will save on tax. I said, why if I want to pay tax, it pays for our schools, hospitals, why should I be taking the advantage? So they said that the board don't want to do that, because it will create "a legal issue" when they will be looking for next round of investments.
So if any future employee reads that, if a company insist on EMI shares and don't want to give you real shares or money upfront, then jump the ship!
Sure, I assumed this because you need that in any country you operate a legal entity.
> which requires a officer with a registered address in the UK.
This is the same in Sweden too
> Then you need to argue HMRC valuation discounts if you want to issue EMI options, which are only valid for 3 months, so you need to do it repeatedly. And then EMI option schemes are 15+ pages long contracts. Sweden has an equivalent stock option scheme that's ~2 pages, in comparison.
You have more experience than me there, I never had this as a problem to solve so you could be right.
You can apply for temporary exemptions, but they are temporary and you are supposed to have good reason.
There’s no explicit requirements that any particular position must be held in Sweden, you can be a VD in the EEA for example, but you still need at least one legal responsible person to be domiciled.