Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1988

521 Provisions supplementary to section 520

(1) For the purposes of section 520(4) to (6), a person’s qualifying expenditure for a chargeable period is the aggregate of the following amounts—

(a) any capital expenditure incurred by him on the purchase of patent rights, being expenditure incurred during the chargeable period or its basis period or at any previous time, other than expenditure which, or any part of which, has formed part of his qualifying expenditure for any previous chargeable period; and

(b) if, for the chargeable period immediately preceding the chargeable period in question, there was an excess of qualifying expenditure over disposal value, the balance of that excess after deducting any writing-down allowance under section 520(4)(a) made by reference to that excess.

(2) If, in any chargeable period or its basis period, a person sells the whole or any part of any patent rights on the purchase of which he has incurred capital expenditure, then, for the purposes of section 520(4) to (6) and subsection (1) above, he is required to bring into account for that chargeable period disposal value equal, subject to subsections (3) and (4) below, to the net proceeds to him of that sale.

(3) The disposal value to be brought into account by any person in respect of any patent rights as a result of one or more sales falling within subsection (2) above shall not (or, as the case may be, shall not in the aggregate) exceed the capital expenditure incurred by him on the purchase of those rights.

(4) Where the person mentioned in subsection (3) above has acquired the patent rights as a result of a transaction which was, or a series of transactions each of which was, between persons who are connected with each other within the terms of section 839, that subsection shall have effect as if it referred to the capital expenditure on the purchase of the rights incurred by whichever party to that transaction or to any of those transactions incurred the greatest such expenditure.

(5) Where a person incurs capital expenditure on the purchase of patent rights and either—

(a) he and the seller are connected with each other within the terms of section 839, or

(b) it appears with respect to the sale, or with respect to transactions of which the sale is one, that the sole or main benefit which, but for this subsection, might have been expected to accrue to the parties was the obtaining of an allowance under section 520(4),

there shall be disregarded for the purposes of section 520(4) and (6) and subsection (1) above so much (if any) of that expenditure as exceeds the disposal value to be brought into account by virtue of subsections (2) to (4) above by reason of the sale.