Corporation Tax Act, 1976

Relief for terminal loss in a trade.

18.—(1) Where a company ceasing to carry on a trade has in any accounting period falling wholly or partly within the previous twelve months incurred a loss in the trade, the company may claim to set the loss off for purposes of corporation tax against trading income from the trade in accounting periods falling wholly or partly within the three years preceding those twelve months (or within any less period throughout which the company has carried on the trade); and, subject to the following subsections and to any relief for earlier losses, the trading income of any of those periods shall be then treated as reduced by the amount of the loss, or by so much of that amount as cannot be relieved under this subsection against income of a later accounting period:

Provided that relief shall not be given under this subsection in respect of any loss in so far as the loss has been or can be otherwise taken into account so as to reduce or relieve any charge to tax.

(2) Where a loss is incurred in an accounting period falling partly outside the twelve months mentioned in subsection (1), relief shall be given under that subsection in respect of a part only of that loss proportionate to the part of the period falling within those twelve months; and the amount of the reduction which may be made under that subsection in the trading income of an accounting period falling partly outside the three years there mentioned shall not exceed a part of that income proportionate to the part of the period falling within those three years.

(3) Section 16 (5) to (8) shall apply for purposes of this section as they apply for purposes of section 16 (1); and relief shall not be given under this section in respect of a loss incurred in a trade so as to interfere with any relief under section 10 in respect of payments made wholly and exclusively for purposes of that trade.

(4) When the tax credits comprised in the total amount of the franked payments made by a company in an accounting period exceed the tax credits comprised in the total amount of the franked investment income received by the company in that accounting period, then, the set-off of loss provided for by subsection (1) shall not apply so as to reduce the amount on which the company is chargeable to corporation tax to an amount less than an amount the corporation tax chargeable on which for that period is a sum equal to the excess:

Provided that where the accounting period falls partly outside the three years mentioned in subsection (1) the excess of the tax credits to be taken into account for the purpose of this subsection shall be the part of the excess for the whole of the accounting period proportionate to the part of the accounting period which falls within the three years mentioned in subsection (1).