Business Investment Relief (BIR) is a very attractive relief for non domiciled persons who have untaxed earnings or mixed funds abroad and who wanted to invest in the UK.It is used a lot in conjunction with EIS or SEIS investments allowing people to bring in untaxed earnings without being taxed under the remittance basis and at the same time benefit from the tax relief provided by such schemes. New legislation included in Finance Bill 2017 now makes the BIR scheme even more flexible for any investment made on or after 6 April 2017. Here are the changes:
- The definition of a qualifying investment will be extended to the acquisition of existing shares and not just newly issued shares in a target company.
- Where the target company is preparing to trade or hold trading investments, the period during which it must actually do so will be extended from 2 to 5 years.
