Finance (No. 2) Act, 1915

Determination of profits and pre-war standard.

40.(1) The profits arising from any trade or business to which this Part of this Act applies shall be separately determined for the purpose of this Part of this Act, but shall be so determined on the same principles as the profits and gains of the trade or business are or would be determined for the purpose of income tax, subject to the modifications set out in the First Part of the Fourth Schedule to this Act and to any other provisions of this Act.

(2) The pre-war standard of profits for the purposes of this Part of this Act shall, subject to the provisions of this Act, be taken to be the amount of the profits arising from the trade or business on the average of any two of the three last pre-war trade years, to be selected by the taxpayer (in this Part of this Act referred to as the profits standard): Provided that if it is shown to the satisfaction of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue that that amount was less than the percentage standard as herein-after defined, the pre-war standard of profits shall be taken to be the percentage standard.

The percentage standard shall, for the purposes of this Part of this Act, be taken to be an amount equal to the statutory percentage on the capital of the trade or business as existing at the end of the last pre-war trade year, subject, however, to the provisions of this Act as to any alteration in the manner of calculating the percentage standard in special cases.

The statutory percentage shall be six per cent. in the case of a trade or business carried on or owned by a company or other body corporate, and seven per cent. in the case of any other trade or business, subject, however, to the provisions of this Act as to the increase in that percentage in certain cases.

The provisions contained in the Second Part of the Fourth Schedule to this Act shall have effect with respect to the computation of the profits of a pre-war trade year, and the provisions contained in the Third Part of the Fourth Schedule shall have effect with respect to the ascertainment of capital for the purposes of this Part of this Act.

The last pre-war trade year” means the year ending at the end of the last accounting period before the fifth day of August nineteen hundred and fourteen, and “the three last pre-war trade years” means the three years ending at the three corresponding times.

(3) Where it appears to the Commissioners of Inland Revenue, on the application of a taxpayer in any particular case, that any provisions of the Fourth Schedule to this Act should be modified in his case, owing to a change in the constitution of a partnership, or to the postponement or suspension, as a consequence of the present war, of renewals or repairs, or to exceptional depreciation or obsolescence of assets employed in the trade or business due to the present war, or to the necessity in connection with the present war of providing plant which will not be wanted for the purposes of the trade or business after the termination of the war, or to any other special circumstances specified in regulations made by the Treasury, those Commissioners shall have power to allow such modifications of any of the provisions of that schedule as they think necessary in order to meet the particular case.

If the Commissioners refuse, on any such application, to allow any modification, or if the applicant is dissatisfied with any modification allowed, the applicant may require the Commissioners to refer the case to a Board of Referees, to be appointed for the purposes of this Part of this Act by the Treasury, and that Board shall consider any case so referred and have the same powers with respect thereto as the Commissioners have.