Childcare Facilities: Capital expenditure incurred on or after December 2nd, 1998, on the construction, extension and refurbishment of a building or part of a building used as a childcare facility qualifies for capital allowances at the rate of 15 per cent per annum for the first six years and 10 per cent in the seventh.

The maximum allowance which can be set against PAYE income is £25,000. Premises must be used to provide a pre-school service, or, for a pre-school service and a day care or other service to cater for children other than pre-school children.

Park and ride facilities: Capital allowances on expenditure for the construction of qualifying parking facilities. The maximum capital allowance which can be set off against non-rental income is £25,000.

Films: A maximum allowance of 80 per cent of £25,000 (£20,000) is available for an investment in a qualifying film project. For a PAYE taxpayer at the top tax rate the maximum saving would be £9,200. But in packaged projects the investor has to share his/her tax break with the film company/promoter so that generally investors clear substantially less than half of the tax saving unless they take very significant risks.

BES schemes: The maximum allowable investment is £25,000 for shares in a qualifying company, giving a saving of £11,500 for the investor. Shares must be held for five years. Because the maximum BES funds any company can raise is now just £250,000, generally only small and developing companies are now raising such funds. Returns can be good when companies do well but there are significant risks of failure.