(1)Relief for trading losses and other amounts eligible for relief from corporation tax may in accordance with Schedule 10 to this Act be surrendered by a company (called " the surrendering company ") which is a member of a group of companies and claimed by another company (called " the claimant company ") which is a member of the same group by way of a new relief from corporation tax to be called group relief.
(2)Group relief shall also be available in accordance with Schedule 10 to this Act—
(a)where the surrendering company is a trading company which is owned by a consortium and which is not a subsidiary of any company, and the claimant company is a member of the consortium, or
(b)where the surrendering company is a trading company—
(i)which is a ninety per cent. subsidiary of a holding company which is owned by a consortium, and
(ii)which is not a subsidiary of a company other than the holding company,
and the claimant company is a member of the consortium, or
(c)where the surrendering company is a holding company which is owned by a consortium and which is not a subsidiary of any company, and the claimant company is a member of the consortium:
Provided that no claim may be made by a member of a consortium if a profit on a sale of the share capital of the surrendering or holding company which that member owns would be treated as a trading receipt of that member.
(3)Subject to Schedule 10 to this Act, two or more claimant companies may make claims relating to the same surrendering company, and to the same accounting period of that surrendering company.
(4)A payment for group relief—
(a)shall not be taken into account in computing profits or losses of either company for corporation tax purposes, and
(b)shall not for any of the purposes of the Corporation Tax Acts be regarded as a distribution or a charge on income,
and in this subsection " payment for group relief " means a payment made by the claimant company to the surrendering company in pursuance of an agreement between them as respects an amount surrendered by way of group relief, being a payment not exceeding that amount.
(5)Section 20 of the [1953 c. 34.] Finance Act 1953 (subvention payments) as applied to corporation tax by paragraph 10 of Schedule 15 to the [1965 c. 25.] Finance Act 1965 shall not have effect in respect of the deficit of any accounting period ending after the passing of this Act.
(6)For the purposes of this section and Schedule 10 to this Act—
(a)two companies shall be deemed to be members of a group of companies if one is the subsidiary of the other or both are subsidiaries of a third company,
(b)" holding company " means a company the business of which consists wholly or mainly in the holding of shares or securities of companies which are its ninety per cent. subsidiaries, and which are trading companies,
(c)" subsidiary " has the meaning assigned to it for certain purposes of the profits tax by section 42 of the [1938 c. 46.] Finance Act 1938, and subsections (2) and (3) of that section shall apply as they applied for the purposes of that section, except that in the application of that section any share capital of a registered industrial and provident society shall be treated as within the definition of ordinary share capital,
(d)" trading company " means a company whose business consists wholly or mainly of the carrying on of a trade or trades.
(7)References in this section and the said Schedule to a company apply only to bodies corporate resident in the United Kingdom; and in determining for the purposes of this section and that Schedule whether one company is a subsidiary of another, the other company shall be treated as not being the owner—
(a)of any share capital which it owns directly in a body corporate if a profit on a sale of the shares would be treated as a trading receipt of its trade, or
(b)of any share capital which it owns indirectly, and which is owned directly by a body corporate for which a profit on the sale of the shares would be a trading receipt, or
(c)of any share capital which it owns directly or indirectly in a body corporate not resident in the United Kingdom.
(8)For the said purposes—
(a)a company shall be deemed to be a ninety per cent. subsidiary of another company if not less than ninety per cent. of its ordinary share capital is directly owned by that other company,
(b)a company is owned by a consortium if all of the ordinary share capital of that company is directly owned between them by five or fewer companies, and those companies are called the members of the consortium,
(c)a member's share in a consortium shall be the percentage of the ordinary share capital of the surrendering company, or as the case may be of the holding company through which the surrendering company is owned, which is owned by that member in the relevant accounting period of the surrendering company, and if that percentage has fluctuated in the accounting period, the average percentage over the period shall be taken,
and in this subsection references to ownership and to ordinary share capital shall be construed in accordance with section 42(3) of the [1938 c. 46.] Finance Act 1938.