Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1988

220 Conditions as to residence and period of ownership

(1) The vendor must be resident and ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom in the year of assessment in which the purchase is made and if the shares are held through a nominee the nominee must also be so resident and ordinarily resident.

(2) The residence and ordinary residence of trustees shall be determined for the purposes of this section as they are determined under section 52 of the 1979 Act for the purposes of that Act.

(3) The residence and ordinary residence of personal representatives shall be taken for the purposes of this section to be the same as the residence and ordinary residence of the deceased immediately before his death.

(4) The references in this section to a person’s ordinary residence shall be disregarded in the case of a company.

(5) The shares must have been owned by the vendor throughout the period of five years ending with the date of the purchase.

(6) If at any time during that period the shares were transferred to the vendor by a person who was then his spouse living with him then, unless that person is alive at the date of the purchase but is no longer the vendor’s spouse living with him, any period during which the shares were owned by that person shall be treated for the purposes of subsection (5) above as a period of ownership by the vendor.

(7) Where the vendor became entitled to the shares under the will or on the intestacy of a previous owner or is the personal representative of a previous owner—

(a) any period during which the shares were owned by the previous owner or his personal representatives shall be treated for the purposes of subsection (5) above as a period of ownership by the vendor, and

(b) that subsection shall have effect as if it referred to three years instead of five.

(8) In determining whether the condition in subsection (5) above is satisfied in a case where the vendor acquired shares of the same class at different times—

(a) shares acquired earlier shall be taken into account before shares acquired later, and

(b) any previous disposal by him of shares of that class shall be assumed to be a disposal of shares acquired later rather than of shares acquired earlier.

(9) If for the purposes of capital gains tax the time when shares were acquired would be determined under any provision of Chapter II of Part IV of the 1979 Act (reorganisation of share capital, conversion of securities, etc.) then, unless the shares were allotted for payment or were comprised in share capital to which section 249 applies, it shall be determined in the same way for the purposes of this section.