Finance Act 1994

7 In section 293 (qualifying companies)—

(a) for subsections (1) to (3) there is substituted—

“(1) Subject to section 294, a company is a qualifying company (whether it is resident in the United Kingdom or elsewhere) if it complies with the requirements of this section.

(2) The company must, throughout the relevant period, be an unquoted company and be—

(a) a company which exists wholly for the purpose of carrying on one or more qualifying trades or which so exists apart from purposes capable of having no significant effect (other than in relation to incidental matters) on the extent of the company’s activities, or

(b) a company whose business consists wholly of—

(i) the holding of shares or securities of, or the making of loans to, one or more qualifying subsidiaries of the company, or

(ii) both the holding of such shares or securities, or the making of such loans, and the carrying on of one or more qualifying trades.

(3) In this section “qualifying subsidiary”, in relation to a company, means a subsidiary of a kind which that company may hold by virtue of section 308”,

(b) subsection (4) is omitted,

(c) in subsection (7), at the end there is inserted “or would not be fully paid up if any undertaking to pay cash to the company at a future date were disregarded”,

(d) for subsection (8) there is substituted—

“(8) Subject to section 308, the company must not—

(a) at any time in the relevant period control (or together with any person connected with it control) another company or be under the control of another company (or another company and any other person connected with that other company), or

(b) at any such time be a 51 per cent. subsidiary of another company or itself have a 51 per cent. subsidiary,

and no arrangements must be in existence at any time in that period by virtue of which the company could fall within paragraph (a) or (b) above.

(8A) Section 312(1A)(b) applies to determine the relevant period for the purposes of this section and sections 294, 295 and 296”, and

(e) subsections (9) to (11) are omitted.