It is the season for special pleading, meaning warnings to the chancellor of the dire consequences that will follow if she fiddles with various tax reliefs in her budget next month. In the case of London’s junior stock market – once known as the Alternative Investment Market, but these days just as Aim – the chorus is becoming deafening.
The “ongoing viability” of Aim would be threatened if 100% business relief from inheritance tax (IHT) is jettisoned, said Julia Hoggett, the chief executive of the London Stock Exchange, in a letter to the Treasury reported by Sky News. Stockbroker Peel Hunt thinks the likely initial share price reaction would be “a drop of 20%-30% across the [Aim] index”.
