OVERVIEW
Most founders discover the rules of UK investment relief after they have already broken one of them.
The Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme gives an investor half of what they put in back off their income tax bill. It is the most generous investment relief in the United Kingdom, and for a first round it is often the difference between a conversation and a cheque.
It is also governed by a set of conditions that are unforgiving in a specific way: several of them, once breached, cannot be repaired at any price.
Take investment under EIS before SEIS and the company can never use SEIS again.
Count the three-year eligibility window from incorporation rather than from the first sale and the window may already have closed.
Issue shares under a standard investor template that carries a liquidation preference and the relief fails — not for one investor, but for everyone in the round.
None of these are commercial misjudgments. They are sequence errors, and they are made by capable people who were never told the order.
This course teaches that order.
Seven steps, in the sequence they must happen, from checking whether your company still qualifies to the moment your investor receives their money back.
It covers what HMRC looks for, what it refuses, and where the deadlines sit.
It is built for the founder who is about to raise, and for the adviser who has to get it right on someone else’s behalf.
You will not leave with a pitch deck.
You will leave knowing which decisions in front of you are still open, and which have already been made.
WHAT YOU WILL LEARN
- How SEIS and EIS work in practice, and the order between them that cannot be reversed
- Whether your company still qualifies, and precisely how long that remains true
- The two limbs of HMRC’s risk to capital test, and how to write your answer to it
- What belongs in an Advance Assurance application, and the reasons applications are refused
- How to check that your investor can actually use the relief before you agree a figure
- The difference between carrying relief back one year and the five-year window to claim it
- How relief is withdrawn after the money is in, and the events that trigger it
- The ten errors that most commonly destroy the relief permanently
CURRICULUM
Module 1: Foundations
- Where SEIS sits among the UK venture capital schemes
- The four numbers that govern every decision that follows
- Why relief is a reduction in tax, never a payment
- What the Treasury is buying, and why that shapes every form you file
Workshop: Establishing the date of your own first commercial sale
Outcome: A clear answer on whether SEIS remains available to you, and for how long
Module 2: Company qualification
- The six tests a company must pass
- Excluded activities, and how a mixed trade is assessed
- Risk to capital: both limbs, and the language HMRC responds to
- Period A and Period B — two statutory clocks governing different obligations
- What may be issued as eligible shares, and what quietly disqualifies an issue
Workshop: Drafting your own risk to capital paragraph
Outcome: A written statement suitable for submission, and a completed eligibility check
Module 3: The investor
- The six conditions on the investor’s side
- Substantial interest, and who counts as an associate
- Why a paid director may claim under SEIS but not under EIS
- Testing whether the relief will be usable against an actual tax liability
Workshop: Calculating the tax capacity of your own prospective investors
Outcome: A defensible figure for the size of your round
Module 4: Process
- Advance subscription agreements, and the four conditions HMRC imposes
- Advance Assurance: the document pack, the timeline, the refusal reasons
- Issuing the shares — the point after which nothing can be corrected
- Forms SEIS1, SEIS2 and SEIS3, and the gate that governs when you may file
Workshop: Building your own expenditure record and certificate tracker
Outcome: A working compliance file, started before it is needed
Module 5: Reliefs and claims
- Income tax relief, and how it is applied in the calculation
- Carrying relief back one tax year, and when that produces cash rather than a reduction
- The five-year claim window, and which historic investments remain open
- Capital gains: reinvestment relief and disposal relief
- Loss relief, negligible value claims, and the real cost of a failure
Workshop: Modelling your own investor’s position across three outcomes
Outcome: A conversation you can hold with an investor, in numbers
Module 6: Keeping the relief
- Receipt of value — the category that catches people after the money is in
- The events that withdraw relief, and the duty to notify HMRC
- Sequencing SEIS and EIS across multiple rounds
- Eight claims commonly repeated in the market that are no longer correct
Workshop: Auditing four companies against the rules
Outcome: The judgment to recognise a disqualifying event before it happens
WHAT YOU RECEIVE
- A printed participant workbook with worksheets, calculators and a glossary
- Four printable phase checklists covering forty-eight control points
- A key dates record covering every deadline in the process
- A seven-day action plan to complete after the course
- Direct links to every HMRC form, helpsheet and manual reference used
WHY THIS COURSE IS DIFFERENT
It teaches a sequence, not a subject.
Most material on investment relief is organised as a list of topics.
The rules are not a list.
They are an order of operations with deadlines attached, and almost every expensive mistake is a sequence error.
This course is structured the way the process actually runs.
Every statement is traceable to its source.
Conditions are taught alongside the section of the Income Tax Act 2007 or the HMRC manual reference they come from.
You can verify what you were told, and so can your accountant.
It corrects what the market still gets wrong.
Several widely repeated claims about SEIS have been out of date for years — including one requirement that was repealed in April 2015 and is still quoted by advisers.
We name them, and show where the current position is published.
It covers what happens after the money arrives.
Relief can be withdrawn for three years after the investment, and the most common trigger is an ordinary commercial act — repaying an old loan to the person who invested.
Courses that stop at the share issue leave that entirely uncovered.
The materials carry a review date.
Tax rules change at every Budget.
The workbook states its version, the position it reflects, the date of its next scheduled review, and the date after which it should not be used without one.
We would rather tell you when the material expires than let you assume it does not.
WHO THIS IS FOR
- Founders preparing a first investment round
- Company directors bringing in outside capital for the first time
- Business owners moving from self-funded growth to funded growth
- Accountants, solicitors and advisers who must get this right for clients
No prior knowledge of the schemes is assumed.
The course starts from what SEIS is and why it exists.
INSTRUCTOR
Piotr Paciura MBA
CEO, CBI Academy
Piotr holds an MBA and is a DBA candidate, with more than twenty years of international business experience and a background spanning law and business.
He works with founders and company directors as a business mentor and leadership trainer, and is CEO of Sail to Lead.
PRACTICAL DETAILS
- Format: one day, in person
- Location: CBI Academy, 5 The Mall, Ealing Broadway, London W5 2PJ
- Places: limited
- Enquiries: study@cbiacademy.co.uk
