Tax relief for the tech sector

Tech clients place an increasing value on working with a tax adviser who has sector specific expertise: one that is able to identify any issues relevant to the tech sector and who can clearly explain those relevancies in layman’s terms to the client. However founders of tech businesses are generally also quite savvy and they often have conducted most of the foundation work themselves – such as registering the company applications for seed enterprise investment scheme (SEIS) relief and the like – bringing tax advisers into the picture much later on than other clients.

This is a challenge for advisers because failing to take professional tax advice in the early stages of starting a business can make a significant difference both in terms of availability of reliefs and adequate planning for qualification of incentives at a later stage. Since the tech sector is a growth area for the...