Ambitious entrepreneurs who want to attract investors can use two different schemes to provide the investor with income tax relief on the value subscribed for shares and capital gains tax relief on the disposal of those shares.

Last Autumn the Chancellor cut the enhanced deduction for expenditure by SME companies on R&D projects from an extra 130% to 86% and the payable tax credit from 14.5% of the loss surrendered to 10%. These new rates will come into effect for qualifying R&D expenditure incurred from 1 April 2023 onwards.