The treasury have announced that Social Investment Tax Relief will not replace Enterprise Investment Scheme for community energy projects with almost immediate effect.
This means that members of community energy projects will be ineligible for the tax reliefs of SEIS, EIS and SITR for shares issued from November 30th 2015 (where projects are also in receipt of FIT or ROCs etc).
This change has come with no warning and was announced directly to the House of Commons last week as an addition to the Finance Bill which is currently progressing through Parliament. Community energy advocates around the country have been taken aback by this unexpected statement, the speed with which changes are being made, and the reversal of earlier announcements on the intention to replace EIS with SITR. There appears to be no mechanism to challenge this decision.
We are urging everyone to take this opportunity to help all the projects meet their share offer targets swiftly. The change does not affect any existing shareholding or applications with us, unless you are still to make payment.
New share offer closing dates – Nov 20th.
A whole host of excellent projects are seeking members. All have wider community and environmental benefits as well as offering a fair return to members. All have open, or soon to be launched, share offers. All these share offers will now have a closing date of NOVEMBER 20th 2015. It is possible there will be one or two more opening soon too, please check the Sharenergy website for details.
Pomona – last few shares available – a small 50kW extension to the existing ground-mounted PV project.
Heartland Wind – last few shares available – two 250kW wind turbines in the Scottish wilderness near Perth, funds benefit local college.
Nadder Community Energy – PV installs on a host of roofs in Wiltshire.
Fetlar Wind – two wind turbines in the Shetland Isles, going up before Christmas, feeding the local school.
Carmarthenshire Wind – a single 500kW wind turbine with a great community benefit fund.
Awel Aman Tawe – two 2MW wind turbines in south Wales with strong community support.
Ham Hydro – a run-of river hydro project, which, when built, will be the largest in the UK.
Support community energy
Of course there will be future projects without tax relief and these will be seeking your support, both morally and financially. We need as many people as possible telling the policy makers that community energy projects provide so many wider benefits.
However, if you wish join a Society or to buy more shares and take advantage of the tax relief before it goes, please submit your application and make the payment as soon as possible. We hope you will take this opportunity to help us raise all the funds for all these projects by this deadline. Feel free to spread the word on any social media which you may use (Facebook, Twitter).
You are of course welcome contact Sharenergy if you have any questions about this update or any of the share offers.