Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1988

752 Apportionment of chargeable profits and creditable tax

(1) Where a direction has been given under section 747(1) in respect of an accounting period of a controlled foreign company, then, subject to subsections (2) and (3) below, the apportionment of the company’s chargeable profits and creditable tax (if any) for that period shall be made among, and according to the respective interests of, the persons who at any time during that period had interests in the company.

(2) In determining for the purposes of this Chapter the respective interests of persons who (in accordance with section 749) have interests in a controlled foreign company, the Board may, if it seems to them just and reasonable to do so, attribute to each of those persons an interest corresponding to his interest in the assets of the company available for distribution among those persons in the event of a winding up or in any other circumstances.

(3) Where the controlled foreign company is not a trading company, the Board may, if it seems to them just and reasonable to do so, treat a loan creditor as having for the purposes of this section an interest in the company to the extent to which the income of the company has been, or is available to be, expended in redemption, repayment or discharge of the loan capital or debt (including any premium thereon) in respect of which he is a loan creditor.

(4) Subject to subsections (5) and (7) below, as between persons each of whom has an unvarying holding of shares of the same class throughout a particular accounting period of a controlled foreign company, the amount of the company’s chargeable profits and creditable tax which is apportioned to each of them by virtue of his holding of those shares shall be in direct proportion to the numbers of shares comprised in their holdings; and similar principles shall apply in relation to an apportionment among other persons each of whom holds an interest of the same description in the controlled foreign company.

(5) Where the same interest in a controlled foreign company is held directly by one person and indirectly by another or others (as in a case where one company has a shareholding in the controlled foreign company and the first company is controlled by a third company or by two or more persons together) then, subject to subsection (6) below, the Board, in apportioning the company’s chargeable profits and creditable tax—

(a) may treat that interest as held solely by a person who holds that interest indirectly or, as the case may be, by two or more persons (the (“holders”) who, taken together, hold that interest indirectly, and

(b) in particular, if that person or one or more of those holders is resident in the United Kingdom, may treat the interest as held solely by that one or, as the case may be, those holders.

(6) In any case where the same interest is held directly by one person and indirectly by another and the circumstances are as set out in any of paragraphs (a) to (c) below, the Board shall treat the interest as held solely by the company which is described in the paragraph concerned as “the assessable company”—

(a) where the interest is held directly by a company resident in the United Kingdom, that company is the assessable company; and

(b) where the interest is held directly by a person resident outside the United Kingdom and indirectly by only one company resident in the United Kingdom, that company is the assessable company; and

(c) where the interest is held directly by a person resident outside the United Kingdom and indirectly by two or more companies resident in the United Kingdom, the assessable company is that one of the companies which so holds the interest by virtue of holding directly an interest in a foreign holding company;

and for the purposes of paragraph (c) above a foreign holding company is a company resident outside the United Kingdom which holds directly or indirectly the interest in the controlled foreign company.

(7) Without prejudice to subsection (5) above, in any case where an interest in a controlled foreign company is held in a fiduciary or representative capacity in such circumstances that there is or are an identifiable beneficiary or beneficiaries, the Board may treat the interest as held by that beneficiary or, as the case may be, as apportioned among those beneficiaries; and any such apportionment shall be made on such basis as seems to the Board to be just and reasonable.

(8) Subject to the preceding provisions of this section, the apportionment of the chargeable profits and creditable tax of a controlled foreign company for any accounting period shall be made on such basis as seems to the Board to be just and reasonable.