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The Provincial Tax Practitioner asks: Entrepreneurs' Relief - What's in a name? 

Am I Alone in Thinking there are Too Many ‘r’s in Entrepreneurs' Relief?

There’s only one more than in Retirement Relief but that additional consonant is, I think, an ‘r’ too far.

The ageing process unfortunately means things don’t work as well as they once did, (that’s what my wife keeps telling me) and the word 'entrepreneur' tests the coordination of tongue, teeth and lips to the limit. I would guess that 'entrepreneur' is number 1 in Jonathan Ross’s top ten unpronounceable words. I suspect however, that Icelandic practitioners have a much more difficult time if the name of their most active volcano is anything to go by (Eyjafjallajokull.)

I believe 'entrepreneur' originally derives from a 13th Century French verb 'entreprendre', meaning 'to do' or 'to undertake'. French economist Jean-Baptiste Say is believed to have coined the noun 'entrepreneur' around 1800, with a meaning of ‘one who undertakes an enterprise, especially a contractor.’ 

I would have to retire if some bright spark decided to rename contractors’ returns under the CIS scheme, Entrepreneurs’ Returns. Five ‘r’s is more than any mortal can cope with.

Many of my old faithful clients are now thinking of retiring and need to know what tax they will pay on an eventual sale. 'Taper' and 'Retirement Relief' used to roll easily off the tongue, and appeared to the client as deserving and generous reliefs for a lifetime of hard graft. But they were obviously too negative. Their replacement relief seems to carry with it connotations of high flying, slightly dodgy city risk-takers, and Dragons’ Den contestants.

Entrepreneurs' Relief would have been the ultimate goal of Del Boy Trotter:

'One day Rodney, we’ll cop for Entrepreneurs' Relief. Mange tout, my son, mange tout’

You try explaining to a 65 year old who has been re-boring engines and pistons all his life that he is entitled to a tax relief by virtue of being an entrepreneur:

‘Are you sure I’m entitled to that? I’m no Alan Sugar; I just fix engines.’

‘Hard Graft Relief’ would be a more appropriate name for the majority of our clients. My partner, who is a lapsed Geordie, finds even more difficulty than I do in pronouncing this most irritating word.

I suppose we ought to be thankful the relief wasn’t named after the Spanish for 'entrepreneur', being 'empresario'.  Only the likes of Simon Cowell or Andrew Lloyd Webber would be eligible for 'Empresario Relief'.

Why couldn’t it simply be called ‘Business Sale or Transfer/Change of Ownership Relief'?

It’s just like calling printing money, ‘Quantitative Easing', which is obviously far more palatable a term, hinting at positive and helpful relief for economic constipation.

Once Upon a Time in a Far Off Land, Everything Stayed the Same.

Unemployment Benefit was good enough for generations until some bright spark decided it was the embodiment of negativity. So it was renamed Jobseeker’s Allowance. Did you not bother looking for a job if you were on unemployment benefit?

A client recently rang me to say he was now claiming ESA. I felt like telling him I was claiming the Fifth Amendment. What on earth was ESA? I racked my rapidly diminishing brain cells and then dug out Hardman’s. What was wrong with Income Support? Too negative again presumably, with its connotation of no hope of employment. How many more claimants will move on to employment as a result of a re-branding of this state benefit?

I’m going down to the pub to see if I can find some genuine five star entrepreneurs who are entitled to a relief I definitely won’t be able to pronounce after a few pints.