Venture capital trust (VCT) meaning

In this issue: Trusts UK taxes for Private Client HMRC Manuals tracker Tax avoidance, evasion and non-compliance Digital assets and cryptoassets International Question of the week Additional Private Client updates this week Daily and weekly news alerts LexTalk®Private Client: a Lexis+® community New and updated content Dates for your diary Trackers New Q&As Useful information Trusts Court dismisses claim for declaration of beneficial interests in shares (Fulstow v Francis) In Fulstow v Francis [2024] EWHC 2122 (Ch), the Chancery Division rejected the claimants’ action concerning shares in Capital Land, a company that owns development land. The claimants asked for declarations confirming their beneficial interests in Capital Land shares held by the defendant, together with an order compelling him to sign a stock transfer form to pass to them the shares they asserted were beneficially theirs. The High Court found there was no binding agreement for the transfer of...

On 26 November 2025, Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, presented the Labour administration’s second Budget, widely referred to simply as Budget 2025. On the same day, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) set out its economic and fiscal outlook for the UK. Proceedings opened poorly, and chaotically, with an OBR forecast leaking amidst a slew of prior government-led briefings and the release of a frustratingly static index of ‘Budget 2025 tax related documents’ to which hyperlinks were not inserted until close to 8pm, together with a piecemeal, stop‑start publication of tax information across scattered web pages, sending readers on a fruitless treasure hunt for clarity or coherence and with no appearance whatsoever of the Overview of Tax Legislation and Rates (OOTLAR). Headline measures comprised, among other items, extending, for another three years to April 2031, the existing personal allowance and income tax bands for taxpayers, and increasing income tax rates applied to property, savings and dividend receipts, as well as imposing employer and employee National Insurance contributions (NICs)...

CGT reliefs most relevant to Private Client Multiple reliefs exist to lessen or defer capital gains tax (CGT) arising on the disposals of both business and personal interests...

Private Client England & Wales glossary A Abatement When, after settling the deceased’s funeral costs, debts and liabilities, the remaining estate cannot satisfy all legacies in full, the gifts are reduced accordingly, unless the Will shows a different intention. In a solvent estate, the order for reduction appears in Part II of Schedule 1 to the Administration of Estates Act 1925. Refer to Practice Note: Payment of legacies. Accruals basis Where income is taxed on an accruals basis, it is attributed to a given tax year by reference to the number of days within that year during which the activity giving rise to the liability accrued. See Practice Note: What is the basis of income tax?. Accumulation and maintenance (A&M) trust A form of non‑interest in possession trust designed to benefit children and young people up to 25, which received favourable inheritance tax treatment between 1975 and 2006. See Practice Note: Accumulation and maintenance trusts—IHT [Archived]. Accredited Legal Representative (ALR) ...

Like the enterprise investment scheme (EIS), the venture capital trust (VCT) regime exists to stimulate investment in smaller, higher‑risk trading businesses. A VCT is a company (not a trust), authorised by HMRC, with shares admitted to trading in a manner that satisfies the listing condition outlined in Practice Note: VCTs—VCT conditions for HMRC approval—The listing condition. Individuals may access a range of tax reliefs, while spreading risk, by subscribing for (or, for certain reliefs, buying) VCT shares. The VCT then invests by subscribing for new shares or debt issued by unquoted companies (for these purposes, companies quoted on AIM are treated as unquoted). For fuller information on the tax reliefs available to individual VCT investors, and on the corporation tax reliefs applicable to VCTs themselves, see Practice Note: VCTs—introduction, tax reliefs and returns. The VCT regime is prescriptive and imposes various conditions that must be satisfied before such tax reliefs can be claimed, including requirements relating to: the individual investor and their investment in VCT...