Seed enterprise investment scheme

The seed enterprise investment scheme is a terrific idea giving generous tax breaks to the early stage investor who is putting in a small stake in a near start-up company: the Dragons’ Den end of the financing market.

I have a practice serving small businesses in Kent and we have three clients who are using this scheme to entice investors to back them.

As I gathered the paperwork together for the first signing session I stumbled into a surreal bureaucratic moment: it is not possible to apply for relief under the seed enterprise investment scheme because the form SEIS1 which is the only method of application has not been invented or published.

After four phone calls to HMRC I had three versions of reality:

• “they” had not finished designing the form;
• “they” had designed the form ...