Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1988

218 Interpretation of sections 213 to 217

(1) In sections 213 to 217—

• “chargeable payment” has the meaning given by section 214(2);

• “control” shall be construed in accordance with section 416(2) to (6);

• “distributing company” has the meaning given by section 213(3);

• “exempt distribution” has the meaning given by section 213(2);

• “group”, except in section 213(11)(c), means a company which has one or more 75 per cent. subsidiaries together with that or those subsidiaries;

• “holding company” means a company whose business (disregarding any trade carried on by it) consists wholly or mainly of the holding of shares or securities of one or more companies which are its 75 per cent. subsidiaries;

• “member”, where the reference is to a member of a company, does not, except in section 214(2)(a), include a person who is a member otherwise than by virtue of holding shares forming part of the company’s ordinary share capital;

• “relevant company” has the meaning given by section 213(3);

• “shares” includes stock;

• “trade”, except in subsection (3) below, does not include dealing in shares, securities, land, trades or commodity futures and “trading activities” shall be construed accordingly;

• “trading company” means a company whose business consists wholly or mainly of the carrying on of a trade or trades;

• “trading group” means a group the business of whose members, taken together, consists wholly or mainly in the carrying on of a trade or trades; and

• “unquoted company” means a company which does not satisfy the condition that its shares or some class thereof (disregarding debenture or loan stock, preferred shares or preferred stock) are listed in the Official List of the Stock Exchange and are dealt in on the Stock Exchange regularly or from time to time, so however that this definition does not apply to a company under the control of (and only of) one or more companies to which this definition does not apply.

(2) In determining for the purposes of section 213(3) to (9) whether a company whose shares are transferred by the distributing company is a 75 per cent. subsidiary of the distributing company there shall be disregarded any share capital of the first-mentioned company which is owned indirectly by the distributing company.

(3) In determining for the purposes of sections 213 to 217 whether one company is a 75 per cent. subsidiary of another, the other company shall be treated as not being the owner of—

(a) any share capital which it owns directly in a body corporate if a profit on a sale of the shares would be treated as a trading receipt of its trade; or

(b) any share capital which it owns indirectly and which is owned directly by a body corporate for which a profit on the sale of the shares would be a trading receipt.

(4) Section 839 applies for the purposes of sections 213 to 217.