On 14 December 2017 the UK published statistics relating to venture capital trusts (VCTs) for tax years up to 2015/16. The data was collected from self-assessment tax returns and does not therefore cover investors claiming income tax relief through other systems such as PAYE or investors that did not make any claims.
Individuals investing in venture capital trusts can claim income tax relief of 30% on their investment up to a maximum investment of GBP 200,000 in each tax year. The shares in the VCT must be held for at least five years to qualify for the relief.
The latest statistics show that in 2015/16, VCT investors claimed income tax relief on GBP 430 million of their investment, a 6% increase compared to the previous year. The majority of VCT investors invested smaller amounts into VCT funds. In 2015/16 around 43% of investors made a claim for an investment of GBP 10,000 or less and only 7% of those investing in VCTs invested amounts over GBP 100,000.
Larger investors with amounts invested between GBP 150,000 and GBP 200,000 were however responsible for a significant percentage of the funds raised by the VCT scheme, accounting for over a quarter (28%) of the total amount of investment in VCTs in 2015/16.
The distribution of investors and amounts of investment in 2015/16 is similar to the statistics for other recent years. In every tax year since 2004/05 individuals investing amounts of GBP 10,000 or less have represented the largest group of investors.
