Page 82 - Cool Britannia

82Maybe it’s a bit like being a doctor, everyone asks you about their various ailments? But I can’t help it as I’m catching up with my old mate Neil Butland outside his offce at The Royal Exchange in a great little Italian restaurant, Panino Guisto, so I can’t help asking for a bit of free tax advice. Neil is a fellow petrol head, we featured his 427 Cobra in 2015.Neil tells me business is good and it’s a friendly environment for investment right now. His sweet spot is EIS (Enterprise Investment Scheme), the government backed incentive for investing in small and growing businesses. Neil believes the scheme offers the best range of tax incentives for private investors in the UK, with a variety of offsets, deferrals, relief’s and safety nets. With the tax year drawing to an end capital gains can also be a headache, although not a bad problem to have… So rather than handing it all over to the taxman a strategic investment into an EIS qualifying company is a great solution as you can also defer capital gains tax going back three years or forward one thereby utilising money that would otherwise go in tax payments. It’s a great way for private investors to defer tax, being locked in to your investments for three years to maximise your tax breaks means these are medium to long term investments that hopefully create an even bigger tax problem... which can always be cycled back into new investments.When Neil set up Sentient Capital, his boutique corporate fnance house, it was focused on this type of investment and he’s been pleasantly surprised by the results. He hand picks the investments with his team to make sure they offer their clients top quality companies and so far he’s been on the money (pun intended)… So if you’re in the market for some real world advice on tax based investments from a fellow petrol head Neil’s your man, just do as I did and arrange to have a few drinks whilst picking his fnancial brain for nuggets of advice. Give the team a call (+44 203 434 3230) at Sentient Capital.www.sentientcapitallondon.co.ukneil@sentientcapitallondon.co.ukGAIN WITHOUTPAINNeil Butland talks tax releif