HMRC have released statistics showing an increase in the number and amount of investments made under the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS), Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS) and Social Investment Tax Relief (SITR) scheme.
EIS, SEIS and SITR provide methods of raising finance while providing investors with tax incentives in the form of Income Tax and Capital Gains Tax (CGT) reliefs. See
For both EIS and SEIS, the majority of funds were raised by companies in the information and communication sector. Manufacturing, professional, scientific and technical industries also featured heavily.
Enterprise Investment Scheme
- Since the EIS was launched in 1994, approximately £28 billion has been raised by 36,145 companies.
- In 2021-22, 4,480 companies raised £2.305 billion.
- This is the highest number of companies and funds raised in a year since the scheme was introduced.
- Of the 4,480 companies, 440 were Knowledge-Intensive Companies (KICs).
- In 2020-21, 3,765 companies (including 355 KICs) raised £1.662 billion.
- 65% of 2021-22 EIS investment was received by companies registered in London and the South East.
- 1,755 companies raised EIS funds for the first time in 2021-22, totalling £584 million.
- Since 2006, 44,125 EIS Advance assurance requests have been made. Of these, 35,755 have been approved.
- 2022-23 saw 3,650 advance assurance requests, of which 81% (2,945) have been approved.
- In 2021-22, 73% (2,620) of advance assurance requests were approved.
- 45,155 investors claimed EIS Income Tax relief on their 2021-22 tax returns, up from 39,025 the previous year.
Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme
- SEIS was launched in 2012. Since then approximately £1.7 billion has been raised by 17,335 companies.
- 2,270 companies raised a total of £205 million in 2021-22.
- This is the highest level of funding since the scheme was introduced.
- 1,815 of these were raising SEIS capital for the first time, totalling £179 million.
- 2021-22 SEIS investment increased over 2020-21 when 2,105 companies raised £176 million.
- Like EIS, the largest proportion of investment was raised by companies registered in London and the South East at 67% of all SEIS investment.
- 30,915 advance assurance requests have been made since 2012 with 25,050 being approved.
- 82% (2,315) of the 2,825 requests received in 2022-23 were approved.
- 2,055 (72%) requests were approved in 2021-22, of the 2,855 received.
- In 2021-22, 9,950 investors claimed SEIS Income Tax relief on their tax returns, up from 9,490 in 2020-21.
- 56% of investors claimed relief on investments of £10,000 or less.
Social Investment Tax Relief
- Since SITR was launched in 2014, a total of £24.6 million has been raised under the scheme by social enterprises.
- 40 social enterprises raised funds under the scheme in 2021-22, totalling £5.4 million. This is an increase on 2020-21 when £4.1 million was raised by 35 enterprises.
- Since 2014, 530 advance assurance requests have been received by HMRC of which 350 were approved.
- 25 requests were received in 2022-23. 15 were approved.
In 2021-22, 40 requests were received and 20 were approved.
