SEIS: It is well known that the requirements of the various tax-advantaged venture capital schemes are both strict and strictly enforced. In Legend of Golden Temple Ltd and others v HMRC [2023] UKFTT 988 (TC) (23 November 2023) the companies did not come close to meeting the requirements of the seed enterprise investment scheme (SEIS). The decision is almost a case study of how to get it wrong. Ten companies were set up by a single director each aimed at a particular religious site in India or Nepal. His intentions changed over time starting out planning to develop films then TV series before finally settling on online content described as ‘a space in the metaverse for devotees to make a remote attendance to a virtual religious site’. All of the companies failed to meet the risk-to-capital condition and the trading condition and in each case there...
