Taxes in UK can demoralize when one just crossing 100-120K of annual taxable benefits. For instance, shares will be taxed first by 45% of income tax then 20% of capital gain. Did anyone calculate an optimal compensation structure for 100, 120, 150, 200, 250 K annually? Is it more optimal instead of receiving shares from a company, buy them at a lower price, and pay only capital gain on them? Or even place bought stocks in own ISA account and don't pay capital gain from the first 20k? Do signup/performance bonuses make sense? Maybe there are some articles on it here already?