Social enterprises and charities who would like to use Social Investment Tax Relief (SITR) to raise investment can apply for 'advance assurance' from HMRC.

To help organisations do this GET SITR offers an editable advance assurance framework that can be downloaded and used as a basis for an application. 

Editable Advance Assurance framework

This is a new resource to help simplify the advance assurance process for charities and social enterprises.

It is a template designed to prompt you to:

  • Edit/delete or amend the statements provided as options
  • Insert the detail that is specific to your social enterprise or charity
  • Attach the supporting documents which are required to support your application

Please note this resource won’t guarantee you receive advance assurance. There are many more governance and eligibility criteria to be considered. But we do hope it will help to get you started and provide valuable guidance.

Below, you can find a template Advance Assurance Application for each type of organisation that is eligible to use SITR.

Advance Assurance Application templates
For use by a registered charity
For use by a Community Benefit Society
For use by a Community Interest Company limited by guarantee
For use by a Community Interest Company limited by shares
Why apply for Advance Assurance to use SITR?

"I've got £60k SITR investment pre-approved, got the £7k I need and will be going after more and all because of the sample pre-assurance docs and help from GET SITR. It was so easy."

Will Mansell, The Grace Network CIC

Although it is not compulsory, applying for advance assurance allows social enterprises and charities to check if their investment proposal is likely to qualify for SITR. Once an organisation has advance assurance, they can show this to potential investors. This gives investors certainty that the tax relief will be available on the investment. Please note, however, that the investor will also need to meet certain criteria to be eligible to get the relief.

For social enterprises and charities, having advance assurance from HMRC may help to attract investors. They will also have the opportunity to make any changes to the investment proposal should HMRC flag any features that don't comply. 

A guide to Advance Assurance

More support: SITR surgeries

We also hold regular SITR support surgeries where you can book a 1:1 session with our tax expert. To find out when the next surgeries will be held, see our events.