For many months, business owners have been anticipating the complete abolition of entrepreneurs’ relief (ER). Although these are worrying times for many other reasons, many of them will be feeling a tadge better to learn that ER has not been removed completely from the statute books.

At the Budget, our latest Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, confirmed that the government had decided to retain ER albeit on a significantly reduced footing.

For many years, it has been possible to sell trading businesses with the benefit of a ER capital gains (CGT) rate of 10% within a lifetime gains limit of £10m. However, with immediate effect, the ER lifetime gains limit has now been reduced to just £1m.