Capital Gains Tax Act 1979

13 Foreign assets: delayed remittances

(1) Subsection (2) below applies where—

(a) chargeable gains accrue from the disposal of assets situated outside the United Kingdom, and

(b) the person charged or chargeable makes a claim and shows that the conditions set out in subsection (3) below are, so far as applicable, satisfied as respects those gains (“the qualifying gains ”).

(2) For the purposes of capital gains tax—

(a) the amount of the qualifying gains shall be deducted from the amounts on which the claimant is assessed to capital gains tax for the year in which the qualifying gains accrued to the claimant, but

(b) the amount so deducted shall be assessed to capital gains tax on the claimant (or his personal representatives) as if it were an amount of chargeable gains accruing in the year of assessment in which the conditions set out in subsection (3) below cease to be satisfied.

(3) The said conditions are—

(a) that the claimant was unable to transfer the qualifying gains to the United Kingdom, and

(b) that that inability was due to the laws of the territory where the income arose, or to the executive action of its government, or to the impossibility of obtaining foreign currency in that territory, and

(c) that the inability was not due to any want of reasonable endeavours on the part of the claimant.

(4) Where under an agreement entered into under arrangements made by the Secretary of State in pursuance of section 1 of the [1972 c. 40.] Overseas Investment and Export Guarantees Act 1972 or section 11 of the [1978 c. 18.] Export Guarantees and Overseas Investment Act 1978 any payment is made by the Exports Credits Guarantee Department in respect of any gains which cannot be transferred to the United Kingdom, then, to the extent of the payment, the gains shall be treated as gains with respect to which the conditions mentioned in subsection (3) above are not satisfied (and accordingly cannot cease to be satisfied).

(5) No claim under this section shall be made in respect of any chargeable gain more than six years after the end of the year of assessment in which that gain accrues.

(6) The personal representatives of a deceased person may make any claim which he might have made under this section if he had not died.