The director general of the Institute of Directors (IoD) has called for investments in venture capital trusts to be given tax breaks to push funding towards British businesses.
In a speech to shareholders of Albion Ventures, Simon Walker urged the government to extend to venture capital trusts the exemption from inheritance tax that investments in Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) and Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS) schemes currently enjoy.
Walker argued that venture capital supported the “vibrant small-scale enterprises on which our economic future depends”. He said investors were “relatively ordinary people” thinking about their future and “providing investments that also serve the community's interests”.
The cost to the treasury would be “minimal,” Walker suggested, and could even be positive, as money is directed away from investment designed to escape inheritance tax and towards growing businesses.
