Finance Act 1996

32 (1) In subsection (1) of section 494 of that Act (charges on income and ring fence profits), after “Section 338” there shall be inserted “of this Act and Chapter II of Part IV of the Finance Act 1996 (loan relationships)”.

(2) For the first sentence of subsection (2) of that section there shall be substituted the following—

“(2) Debits shall not be brought into account for the purposes of Chapter II of Part IV of the Finance Act 1996 in respect of any loan relationship of a company in any manner that results in a reduction of what would otherwise be the company’s ring fence profits except—

(a) to the extent that the loan relationship is in respect of money borrowed by the company which has been—

(i) used to meet expenditure incurred by the company in carrying on oil extraction activities or in acquiring oil rights otherwise than from a connected person; or

(ii) appropriated to meeting expenditure to be so incurred by the company;

(b) in the case of debits falling to be brought into account by virtue of subsection (4) of section 84 of that Act in respect of a loan relationship that has not been entered into, to the extent that the relationship would have been one entered into for the purpose of borrowing money to be used or appropriated as mentioned in paragraph (a) above;

(c) in the case of debits in respect of a loan relationship deemed to exist for the purposes of section 100 of that Act, to the extent that the payment of interest under that relationship is expenditure incurred as mentioned in sub-paragraph (i) of paragraph (a) above; and

(d) in the case of debits in respect of a debtor relationship of the company which is a creditor relationship of a company associated with the company, to the extent that (subject always to paragraph (a) above) the debit does not exceed what, having regard to—

(i) all the terms on which the money was borrowed, and

(ii) the standing of the borrower,

would be the debit representing a reasonable commercial rate of return on the money borrowed.

In this subsection “debtor relationship” and “creditor relationship” have the same meanings as in Chapter II of Part IV of the Finance Act 1996, and references to a loan relationship, in relation to the borrowing of money, do not include references to any loan relationship deemed to exist for the purposes of section 100 of that Act.”

(3) After subsection (2) of that section there shall be inserted the following subsection—

“(2A) Where any debit—

(a) falls to be brought into account for the purposes of Chapter II of Part IV of the Finance Act 1996 in respect of any loan relationship of a company, but

(b) in accordance with subsection (2) above cannot be brought into account in a manner that results in any reduction of what would otherwise be the company’s ring fence profits,

then (notwithstanding anything in section 82(2) of that Act) that debit shall be brought into account for those purposes as a non-trading debit.”

(4) For subsection (4) of that section (charges on income), there shall be substituted the following subsections—

“(4) Subsection (7) of section 403 shall have effect as if the reference in that subsection to the profits of the surrendering company for an accounting period did not include the relevant part of the company’s ring fence profits for that period.

(5) For the purposes of subsection (4) above the relevant part of a company’s ring fence profits for an accounting period are—

(a) if for that period—

(i) there are no charges on income paid by the company that are allowable under section 338, or

(ii) the only charges on income so allowable are charges to which subsection (3) above applies,

all the company’s ring fence profits; and

(b) in any other case, so much of its ring fence profits as exceeds the amount of the charges on income paid by the company as are so allowable for that period and are not charges to which subsection (3) above applies.”