Entrepreneurs' relief, Investors' relief, Companies House

The Government has made some significant amendments to the draft Finance Bill 2016 concerning entrepreneurs' relief and investors' relief, which take effect immediately. The procedures and costs relating to incorporation and returns filed at Companies House are also changing from 30 June 2016. We outline those changes below.

This is an extract from our topical tax tips newsletter dated 23 June 2016 (5 days before we publish an extract on this blog). You can obtain future issues by registering here>>>

Entrepreneurs' relief 
The associated disposal rules within entrepreneurs' relief (ER) have been manipulated by people who arrange for their trading business to use a personally owned property for the purposes of the trade, (say as an office) for a year. A claim for ER on the sale of the property would succeed if the individual disposed of any shares or interest in the partnership at the same time as the property sale. 
  
Those associated disposal rules were changed from 18 March 2015 (by FA 2015), to discourage such manipulation. Now the taxpayer has to dispose of at least 5% of his partnership, or personal company, if he wants to claim ER on an associated disposal. Finance Bill 2016 tweaks these rules further to require the personally-held asset to be owned for at least 3 years before disposal - a change which was to apply to disposals from 18 March 2015 onwards.   
  
The Government has realised that such back-dating would mean some people would have further tax to pay on transactions which have already been completed. It has thus amended the Finance Bill 2016 such that the 3-year ownership period will only apply to assets acquired on or after 13 June 2016. 
  
The condition that the taxpayer must dispose of at least a 5% interest in his partnership is also changed by amendments to the Finance Bill 2016. In most circumstances a partner must reduce his interest in his partnership by at least 5% (eg from 20% to 15%) when he makes an associated disposal. But if the partner is retiring and he may have already reduced his interest in the partnership to below 5%. In such a case the retiring partner will be able to claim ER on an associated disposal made when he finally exits from partnership, even if that last portion of partnership interest amounts to less than 5% 

This is an extract from our topical tax tips newsletter dated 23 June 2016 (5 days before we publish an extract on this blog). You can obtain future issues by registering here>>>

The full newsletter contained links to related source material for this story and the other two topical, timely and commercial tax tips. We've been publishing this newsletter weekly since 2007; it's clearly written and focused on precisely what accountants in general practice need to know about each week. You can obtain future issues by registering here>>>