The Social Investment Tax Relief (SITR) scheme was set up by the UK Government to encourage individual investors to support social impact enterprises.

How much tax relief can I get?

1. Tax reliefs when you invest

• 30% Income Tax Relief: so let’s say, for a £10,000 investment, your income tax is reduced by £3,000 that year.
• Capital Gains Deferral Relief: you can defer any Capital Gains Tax (CGT) you might have to pay if you reinvest those profits into SITR-eligible enterprises.

2. Tax reliefs when you exit your investment

• 100% Capital Gains Tax Exemptions: all your profits from selling your SITR investments are exempt from Capital Gains Tax. You will have to pay Dividend Tax on dividends (or Income Tax if they’re bonds) from these investments, however.
• 100% Loss Relief (except for SITR loans): if you have losses from your SITR investments, you can set them against your Income or Capital Gains Tax.

3. Additional reliefs

• 100% Inheritance Tax Relief: the inherited shares and bonds get full IHT relief you pass away after 2 years.

The maximum amount you can invest is £1,000,000.

How do I claim the SITR tax relief?

Keep in mind that you’re only eligible for the CGT exemption and the Income Tax relief if you keep the investments (either shares or bonds) for 3 years.

You can claim the SITR tax relief when you’re filing your personal tax return. Go to the “other tax reliefs” section on your Additional Information (SA101) page.

Here you’ll need the enter the total amount invested into SITR eligible investments:

Of course, you can also use TaxScouts – we can sort all of this for you for a flat £119.

Where can I find SITR eligible investments?

There aren’t many SITR eligible investments to be found. The UK Government is currently reviewing the SITR scheme and might be replacing it with a Social VCT instead.

For now, you can find SITRs through specialised firms like:

• Big Society Capital
• Resonance Capital
• Bright Futures Fund
• or GoodFinance.

Of course, you should do your own research – we do not endorse any of these firms or their SITR eligible investments in particular.