Finance Act, 1999

Amendment of section 723 (special investment policies) of Principal Act.

62.—(1) Section 723 of the Principal Act is hereby amended—

(a) in subsection (1), after the definition of “qualifying shares” by the insertion of the following definition:

“‘relevant period’ means—

(a) the period commencing on the date on which the first payment was received by an assurance company in respect of a special investment policy and ending on the fifth anniversary of that date, and

(b) each subsequent period of five years;”,

(b) in subsection (3)(c), by the substitution for “at any time on or after the fifth anniversary of the date on which the first payment was received by it in respect of the policy” of “on the date on which each relevant period ends”, and

(c) by the substitution of the following subsection for subsection (6):

“(6) The corporation tax chargeable on any profits on which corporation tax falls finally to be borne which are attributable to the special investment fund of an assurance company shall be the amount of such tax, for the purposes of the Tax Acts other than section 707(4), before it is reduced by any credit, relief or other deduction under the Tax Acts apart from this section, which is 20 per cent of those profits; but in computing profits for the purposes of this subsection, section 78(2) shall apply as if the rate per cent of capital gains tax specified in section 28(3) were the rate per cent of corporation tax specified in section 21(1).”.

(2) (a) Paragraphs (a) and (b) of subsection (1) shall be deemed to have applied as on and from the 1st day of February, 1993.

(b) Paragraph (c) of subsection (1) shall apply as respects accounting periods beginning or treated as beginning on or after the 6th day of April, 1999.

(c) For the purposes of paragraph (b), where an accounting period of a company begins before the 6th day of April, 1999, and ends on or after that day, it shall be divided into 2 parts, one beginning on the day on which the accounting period begins and ending on the 5th day of April, 1999, and the other beginning on the 6th day of April, 1999, and ending on the day on which the accounting period ends, and both parts shall be treated as if they were separate accounting periods of the company.