As an ambitious entrepreneur and founder of a fast growth business you may benefit from reviewing the following generous tax breaks as part of your 2013 planning:
1. Patent box – introduced with effect from 1 April 2013, companies will be able to elect into this new beneficial company tax rate and pay tax at just 10%. This new rate of corporation tax will be phased in over a four year period.
Innovative UK companies should be taking steps now to ensure that their patents qualify and apply across the widest possible range of products and services to maximise tax savings.
2. R&D tax relief – the SME R&D tax relief continues to get better and better with the enhanced corporation tax deduction now at 225% with no de minimus spend nor PAYE cap on repayments.
Average claims are approx £40,000 yet less than 1% of UK SMEs claim it – are you missing out?
3. Entrepreneur’s relief – when you come to sell the shares in your company you could benefit from this preferred rate of capital gains tax of just 10% on the first £10m of lifetime gains. You must be an officer or employee of the trading company and hold at least 5% of the ordinary shares and voting rights for the 12 months leading up to disposal of the shares to qualify.
You must ensure that the qualifying conditions are not (inadvertently) breached especially if a sale is on the cards in the foreseeable future.
4. EMI share options – the Enterprise Management Incentive share option scheme (EMI) has long been an attractive tool for retaining and incentivising key employees, however, it’s about to get even better….
It has been a long running source of frustration that the option holders struggled to satisfy the requirements of entrepreneur’s relief (ie they rarely tick the 5% share holding requirement nor the 12 month minimum holding period), however, changes are afoot to allow option holders to accrue their 12 month qualifying holding period from the date of grant and for sub 5% holdings to qualify. This promises to be a great development.
5. Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS) – raising funding for early stage (< 2 years) trading companies is made a whole lot easier when the investors can receive a 50% income tax break on the funds invested (potentially up to 78% tax relief up until 5 April 2013)!
Companies are limited to £150,000 in total under SEIS whereas individuals have a £100,000 annual investment allowance.
These are just a handful of potentially lucrative tax breaks that should be high on your agenda if you are to release much needed cash into your business and get off to a cracking start in 2013!
