Budget: VCT/EIS changes

Jason Hollands, Managing Director at leading financial planning and investment advisory group Tilney Bestinvest comments:

“As announced in the Budget, changes are being made to the rules governing key tax efficient schemes to support smaller companies; namely the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS), Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS), and Venture Capital Trusts (VCTs), so that they comply with EU state aid regulations.

“In particular, future VCT and EIS investments will be restricted to companies less than 12-years old, other than where the investment ‘will lead to a substantial change in the company’s activity.’

“Currently there are no restrictions on the age of a business that can receive VCT financing and the date of inception is in itself irrelevant to a company's funding requirements. VCTs can currently invest in long-established businesses, for example, to provide development capital for expansion and with it job creation.

“Furthermore, a total cap of £15m is being introduced on the amount of tax-advantaged funding a business receives, which will increase to £20m for knowledge-intensive companies where the maximum staff size required under the VCT rules will also increase to 499 employees (from 249). We believe the new overall caps will replace the annual £5 million cap a business can receive from tax-advantaged investment schemes.

“The VCT industry is used to successfully accommodating periodic changes to the criteria of eligible investments. These changes are only likely to impact the future investments VCTs make rather than existing holdings, and therefore VCTs any shift towards earlier phase investments is likely to be very gradual for mature VCTs with well-diversified portfolios.

“Competition for originating future deals at the more mature end of the new 12-year window could be quite intense at a time when demand for VCTs from affluent investors is likely to increase further as a result of the very significant further cut in the pensions life time allowance - from £1.25 million to £1 million – also announced today.”

Important Information:

The value of investments, and the income derived from them, can go down as well as up and you can get back less than you originally invested. This press release does not constitute personal advice. If you are in doubt as to the suitability of an investment please contact one of our advisers.

VCTs should be regarded as higher risk investments. They are only suitable for UK resident taxpayers who can tolerate higher risk and have a time horizon of greater than five years. Past performance is not an indication of future performance. Share values and income from them may go down as well as up and you may not get back the amount originally invested. Owing to the nature of their underlying assets, VCTs are highly illiquid. Investors should be aware that they may have difficulty, or be unable to realise their shares at levels close to that that reflect the value of the underlying assets. Tax levels and reliefs may change and the availability of tax reliefs will depend on individual circumstances. You should only subscribe for new VCT shares on the basis of the relevant prospectus and must carefully consider the risk warnings contained in that prospectus.

Press contacts:

Jason Hollands
020 7189 9919
07768 661382
jason.hollands@tilneybestinvest.co.uk

Roisin Hynes
0207 189 2403
07966 843 699
roisin.hynes@tilneybestinvest.co.uk

Matthew Gray
0207 189 2492
matthew.gray@tilneybestinvest.co.uk

About Tilney Bestinvest

Tilney Bestinvest is a leading investment and financial planning firm that builds on a heritage of more than 150 years. We look after more than £9 billion of assets on our clients’ behalf and pride ourselves on offering the very highest levels of professional client service with transparent, competitive pricing across our entire range of solutions.

We offer a range of services for clients whether they would like to have their investments managed by us, require the support of a highly qualified adviser, prefer to make their own investment decisions or want to take more than one approach. We also have a nationwide team of expert financial planners to help clients with all aspects of financial planning, including retirement planning.

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