Finance Act 1944

33 Tax avoidance.

(1) Section thirty-five of the [4 & 5 Geo. 6. c. 30.] Finance Act, 1941 (which relates to transactions designed to avoid liability to excess profits tax), shall have effect, and shall, subject to the provisions of this section, be deemed always to have had effect, as amended by the subsequent provisions of this section.

(2) In subsection (1) of the said section, for the words " the main purpose for which any transaction or transactions was or were effected" there shall be substituted the words " the main purpose or one of the main purposes for which any transaction or transactions was or were effected ", and in subsection (3) of the said section, for the words " on the ground that the main purpose of the transaction or transactions was not the avoidance or reduction of liability to tax" there shall be substituted the words " on the ground that the avoidance or reduction of liability to tax was not the main purpose or one of the main purposes of the transaction or transactions ".

(3) If it appears in the case of any transaction or transactions, being a transaction which involves, or transactions one or more of which involve—

(a) the transfer or acquisition of shares in a company; or

(b) a change or changes in the person or persons carrying on a trade or business or part of a trade or business,

that, having regard to the provisions of the law relating to excess profits tax, other than the said section thirty-five and this section, which were in force at the time when the transaction or transactions was or were effected, the main benefit which might have been expected to accrue from the transaction or transactions during the currency of excess profits tax was avoidance or reduction of liability to the tax, the avoidance or reduction of liability to excess profits tax shall be deemed for the purposes of the said section thirty-five to have been the main purpose or one of the main purposes of the transaction or transactions.

(4) A direction under the said section thirty-five as amended by this section may be given notwithstanding that a direction has been given under that section before the passing of this Act in relation to the transaction or transactions in question or some of them :

Provided that in any case where a direction so given has, before the twenty-fifth day of April, nineteen hundred and forty-four, been cancelled or varied on appeal by the Special Commissioners, no direction given by virtue of this section in relation to the transaction or transactions in question shall affect any chargeable accounting periods ending before the first day of April, nineteen hundred and forty-four.