Entrepreneurs Relief – A Change of Name?

Finally, HM Revenue & Customs have decided to try to turn Entrepreneurs’ relief into a “bad” relief.

Finance Bill 2020 potentially changes the name of the relief from “entrepreneurs’ relief” to “business asset disposal relief” with effect from the tax year 2020-21 (i.e. 5 April 2020). This change was not announced in the Spring 2020 Budget. It is worth noting that the Finance Bill 2020 is of course not yet law (until it becomes the Finance Act 2020) but at the current time this does seem likely.

Cynics might say that it would be easier to abolish in the future a tax relief unfavoured by the Government without the reference to “entrepreneurs” which has a certain emotional and political energy attached.

RM2’s guess is that entrepreneurs’ relief is on the ropes and likely to be knocked out soon. This would be a welcome shot in the arm for the Employee Ownership Trust (EOT) sector when it is considering succession planning with clients.