HMRC is seeking views until 15 May 2015 on draft legislation and explanatory notes amending the rules for the tax-advantaged venture capital schemes announced at Budget 2015. The Budget announced a package of changes to the enterprise investment scheme (EIS) and venture capital trusts (VCTs):
a new 12-year age limit on companies qualifying for EIS/VCT investment;
a new cap on total EIS/VCT investment that an individual company can receive of £15m for most companies, and £20m for ‘knowledge-intensive’ companies;
an increased employee limit of 499 for knowledge-intensive companies;
removal of the barriers between the seed enterprise investment scheme (SEIS) and EIS/VCT funding.
Some of these changes are subject to state aid approval and therefore legislation has not been published in the Finance Bill 2015. The consultation document sets out the detailed legislation that will be brought forward in a future Finance Bill. A tax information and impact note on the changes has also been published. See www.bit.ly/1EEnfkr.
In related news, HMRC has published statistics (www.bit.ly/1ba0ixE) on the first provisional estimates for 2013/14 on the number of companies raising funds, number of subscriptions and amounts raised through the EIS and SEIS. Provisional data for 2013/14 shows that 2,600 companies raised a total of £1,393m of funds under the EIS scheme (compared to 2,420 companies raising £1,024m of funds in 2012/13), with companies raising funds for the first time under the scheme raising a total of £715m (compared with £570m in 2012/13). In addition, almost 1,900 companies received investment through the SEIS and over £155m of funds were raised in 2013/14 (compared with over 1,100 companies raising a total of over £80m under SEIS in 2012/13), and almost 1,600 companies of these companies were raising funds under SEIS for the first time in 2013/14 – representing a total of over £140m in investment.
HMRC is seeking views until 15 May 2015 on draft legislation and explanatory notes amending the rules for the tax-advantaged venture capital schemes announced at Budget 2015. The Budget announced a package of changes to the enterprise investment scheme (EIS) and venture capital trusts (VCTs):
a new 12-year age limit on companies qualifying for EIS/VCT investment;
a new cap on total EIS/VCT investment that an individual company can receive of £15m for most companies, and £20m for ‘knowledge-intensive’ companies;
an increased employee limit of 499 for knowledge-intensive companies;
removal of the barriers between the seed enterprise investment scheme (SEIS) and EIS/VCT funding.
Some of these changes are subject to state aid approval and therefore legislation has not been published in the Finance Bill 2015. The consultation document sets out the detailed legislation that will be brought forward in a future Finance Bill. A tax information and impact note on the changes has also been published. See www.bit.ly/1EEnfkr.
In related news, HMRC has published statistics (www.bit.ly/1ba0ixE) on the first provisional estimates for 2013/14 on the number of companies raising funds, number of subscriptions and amounts raised through the EIS and SEIS. Provisional data for 2013/14 shows that 2,600 companies raised a total of £1,393m of funds under the EIS scheme (compared to 2,420 companies raising £1,024m of funds in 2012/13), with companies raising funds for the first time under the scheme raising a total of £715m (compared with £570m in 2012/13). In addition, almost 1,900 companies received investment through the SEIS and over £155m of funds were raised in 2013/14 (compared with over 1,100 companies raising a total of over £80m under SEIS in 2012/13), and almost 1,600 companies of these companies were raising funds under SEIS for the first time in 2013/14 – representing a total of over £140m in investment.
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