Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

Related legal acts

Key definition

Shares definition

What does Shares mean? In company law practice, a share is a unit of a member’s interest in a company, carrying the rights and obligations attached to its class (for example, voting, dividends and return of capital on a winding up). The Companies Act 2006 simply states that a share is a share in a company’s share capital; the Irish Companies Act 2014 adopts a broadly equivalent approach. Usage and effect are consistent across England & Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Ireland. A company’s share capital comprises the number of shares it allots and issues to investors on or after incorporation. Those...

UK tax incentives for individuals investing in AIM shares and via VCTs: EIS, investors' relief, ISAs, CGT deferral/loss relief, BPR, and the growth market stamp duty/SDRT exemption

Published by a LexisNexis Tax expert

Practice notes

A range of tax reliefs exists for individuals who back unlisted shares and securities, including those admitted to trading on AIM. AIM, a market run by the london stock exchange (LSE), is designed for small and medium-sized growth businesses. Although people often say securities are ‘listed on AIM’, they are not listed; they are simply admitted to trading on AIM. Where a company’s shares or securities are admitted to AIM and it has no other securities listed on a recognised stock exchange, the company is regarded as unquoted. This Practice Note includes a table setting out the principal tax breaks for individuals investing in unlisted, higher-risk companies, and a second table describing the reliefs for individuals who invest indirectly in such companies through a venture capital trust. For information on the reliefs available to companies, see Practice Note: Tax incentives for companies investing in AIM companies.

Rationale for the reliefs

The policy intent behind the investor reliefs for unlisted shares and securities is to encourage the flow of capital into smaller, higher-risk trading companies. This explains why...

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Web page updated on 22/05/2026

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