Ten Common Tax Elections and Claims

Ten Common Tax Elections and Claims

We came across this informative Ten Common Tax Elections and Claims explaining how to make claims under 10 common tax elections.  There’s a lot to take in, but we’ve pulled out 3 of the most relevant with links to the necessary forms.

1. Form 17 (Declaration of beneficial interests in joint property & income)

Income and gains from jointly owned properties are usually taxed equally on spouses (or civil partners) regardless of the actual ownership of the property. However, completion and submission of this form specifies a different apportionment for tax purposes,  which is based on actual proportion of ownership. This can be useful where owners are subject to different rates of income tax.

2. Capital losses set off against income tax s131 ITA 2007

Under this section a taxpayer may be able to reduce his income tax liability by making a claim to offset losses on disposal of shares acquired by subscription in a qualifying trading Company (or following a negligible value claim for such shares) against other income in the current or previous year.

3. Holdover relief claim S165 TCGA and S260 TCGA

Hold-over relief is available under s165 TCGA 1992. There is small print however, such as, the gift must be of ‘business assets’. Also, the transferor and the transferee must claim jointly within five years from transfer.

The time limit for claiming gift hold-over relief is five years and 10 months from the end of the tax year of disposal. Hold-over relief is also available under s 260 TCGA 1994 where the disposal is a chargeable transfer for inheritance tax purposes, but not a potentially exempt transfer. Cases where there is no liability to inheritance tax, because the value transferred is within the zero-rate band, qualify for hold-over relief.