News from Community Energy England 12th November 2015
As most Community Energy England members are now well aware, the removal of EIS tax relief was announced without warning in Parliament on 26 October and the Statutory Instrument implementing it was issued on 27 October. So EIS and SEIS definitely won’t be available for community energy projects after 29 November. Many groups have decided to close share offers slightly ahead of 29 November to give time for cheques to clear and to reconcile money received against share application forms.
As well as announcing the removal of EIS and SEIS on 26 October, the Government also announced that community energy would not be entitled to Social Interest Tax Relief (SITR) for community benefit societies and CICs when consent to ‘enlarge’ it is been granted by the European Commission. Both these announcements are in flat contradiction to previous assurances given in Parliament as our ‘Broken Promises’ document explains. CEE is therefore developing a campaign strategy seeking the restoration of SITR to community energy schemes once it is introduced.
There has been widespread condemnation of the Treasury’s actions and a surge of support for the community energy movement. You may already be aware of the letter sent by over 100 organisations to the Chancellor which a number of people worked very hard to put together.
Community Energy England are doing what we can to support members through this difficult period. If you do have to abandon a project due either to changes to tax relief or indeed changes to feed in tariff it would be extremely useful if you could let us know as we need to monitor the impact. Once again we would also urge affected groups to contact their local MPs with details of projects affected and also, as national media coverage has been limited, to write as well to their local newspapers and use local social media.
There are a lot of groups pressing ahead with share offers at short notice – good luck and we hope you raise what you need to. You can see which of our members have share offers open at http://communityenergyengland.org/members-area/opportunities/