Finance Act, 1920

Determination of profits.

56 & 57 Vict. c. 39.

53.(1) For the purpose of this Part of this Act, profits shall be taken to be the actual profits arising in the accounting period, and shall not be computed by reference to the income tax years or on the average f any years.

(2) Subject to the provisions of this Act, profits shall be the profits and gains determined on the same principles as those on which the profits and gains of a trade would be detrmined for the purposes of Schedule D. set out in the First Schedule to the Income Tax Act, 1918, as amended by any subsequent enactment, whether the profits are assessable to income tax under that schedule or not:

Provided that, for the purpose of this Part of this Act,—

(a) profits shall include all profits and gains arising from any lands, tenements, or hereditaments forming part of the assets of a company, and all interest, dividends, and other income arising from investments or any other source and received in the accounting period, not being interest, dividends, or income received directly or indirectly from a company liable to be assessed to corporation profits tax in respect thereof, and no deduction shall be allowed on account of the annual value of any premises used for the purposes of the company:

(b) deductions shall be allowed in respect of interest on money borrowed for the purposes of the company, and of rent or royalties or share of profits distrubuted to employees under a profit-sharing scheme, and of any other payment income tax on which is collected at the source, not being payments of dividends or payments for the distribution of profits, so, however, that no deduction shall be allowed in respect of royalties paid to or interest on money borrowed from, a person having a controlling interest in the company, whether directly or indirectly, or whether solely or jointly with other persons, or in respect of interest paid on permanent loans:

(c) any deduction allowed in respect of the remuneration of any director, manager or other person concerned in the management of a company, who has a controlling interest in the company, whether directly or indirectly, and whether solely or jointly with any other persons, shall not exceed an amount calculated at the rate of one thousand pounds per annum:

(d) no deduction shall be allowed in respect of any transaction or operation of any nature, which has artifically reduced the amount to be taken as the amount of the profits of the company for the purposes of this Part of this Act:

(e) no deduction on account of wear and tear or renewals or obsolescence or any expenditure of a capital nature for the development of the company or otherwise in respect thereof shall be allowed other than such as may be allowed under the enactments relating to income tax or excess profits duty, whichever be the greater:

(f) no deduction shall be allowed on account of the liability to pay, or the payment of, income tax or corporation profits tax:

(g) a deduction shall be allowed on account of any excess profits duty, any mineral rights duty and excess mineral rights duty payable or paid in the United Kingdom and for any sum payable or paid on account of excess profits duty or similar duty imposed in any country outside the United Kingdom for the same accounting period, but in computing profits for the purposes of excess profits duty in the United Kingdom no deduction shall be allowed on account of the liability to pay or the payment of tax under this Part of this Act:

(h) profits shall include in the case of mutual trading concerns the surplus arising from transactions with members, and in the case of a society registered under the Industrial and Provident Societies Act, 1893, any sums paid by way of bonus, discount or dividend on purchases, shall be treated as trade expenses, and a deduction shall accordingly be allowed in respect thereof:

(i) in the case of a company carrying on the business of life assurance the part of the profits belonging or allocated to, reserved for or expended on behalf of policy holders or annuitants shall be apportioned between the profits of the company directly liable to assessment to corporation profits tax and the profits not so liable, and a deduction shall be allowed of the amount so apportioned to the profits so liable:

Where a company carries on life assurance business in conjunction with assurance business of any other class the life assurance business of the company shall, for the purposes of apportionment under this paragraph but for no other purpose, be treated as if it were a separate business carried on by a separate company:

(j) any sum received by way of repayment of excess profits duty in respect of a previous accounting period under subsection (3) of section thirty-eight of the Finance (No. 2) Act, 1915, and subsequent amendments thereof shall be excluded from the profits taxable:

(k) in the case of any contract extending beyond one accounting period from the date of its commencement to the completion thereof, and only partially performed in any accounting period, there shall (unless the Commissioners of Inland Revenue owing to any special circumstances otherwise direct) be attributed to each of the accounting periods in which such contract was partially performed such proportion of the entire prifits or loss, or estimated profits or loss, in respect of the complete performance of the contract as shall be properly attributable to such accounting periods respectively, having regard to the extent to which the contract was performed in such periods.

(3) Where a company (hereinafter referred to as “the principal company”) holds either in its own name or in that of a nominee the whole of the ordinary capital of any other company (hereinafter referred to as “the subsidiary company”) or so much of that capital as under the general law can lawfully be held by a single shareholder, the profits of the subsidiary company shall, if an application in that behalf is made by the principal company, be treated for the purposes of this Part of this Act as being the profits of the principal company as if the subsidiary company were a branch of the principal company, and the subsidiary company shall not be separately assessed to tax under this Part of this Act:

Provided that in ascertaining, under paragraph (b) of subsection (1) of the last preceding section, the maximum amount of tax payable by the principal company, no deduction shall be allowed in respect of any payments made by the subsidiary company to the principal company, or any other company which in relation to the principal company is a subsidiary company within the meaning of this subsection.