Treasurer’s Report – Wed 22nd May 14

After 5 weeks of working with the committee & volunteers all helping to bed in our new business -which is looking very healthy – it is time for me to get back to writing a brief piece here probably once a fortnight.

I guess the most important issue to address is funding & so for that reason I want to spend this first session ensuring all understand how the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) can work in your favour. If you are not a tax payer then all I am now going to write is of no benefit to you; however if you either will pay income tax this year or did last year then please read on.

In simple terms if you chose to buy shares in ‘The Case’, then via our agreement with HMRC, a tax payer can claim back 30% of their investment later this year. By way of an example: let’s take a couple who want to become voting share holders in ‘The Case’. Each would need to invest the minimum of £250. Now assuming they each paid last year at least £75 income tax then they could claim this back later this year. They retain their original £250 investment and recovered the £75 (30% of their investment) of their own tax payments from last year. There are other issues like you must retain these shares for at least 3 years (still works out at 10% of interest pa) & you cannot trade them only sell them back to the business at face value – but that in essence is the core of the scheme. I hope you can see from this that the larger your investment then the larger the reward.

Another point to remember is that if you retain those shares later you can also expect interest payments, although that will definitely not be in the first few years, while we build the business.

Like all these things there will be issues we perhaps need to discuss before you invest or questions you may have, for all I have written are just the core elements of the scheme. For my part I aim to be in ‘The Case’ most Sunday lunch times so if you want to come along for a chat please do so or you can ring me – 310 410.

Please understand there is no pressure on anyone investing we already have 185 investors who are in for over £240k but wouldn’t it be terrific if we could increase the number of local investors to over the 200 mark or perhaps 250?

More soon!

Peter Cross

Treasurer