Finance Act 1996

2 (1) In subsection (3) of section 33A (relief limited to expenditure on new shipping incurred or to be incurred by the shipowner), for paragraph (b) there shall be substituted the following paragraph—

“(b) the amount of any expenditure incurred or to be incurred by qualifying persons in the period of six years beginning with the day on which the event mentioned in subsection (1)(b) above occurs, so far as that expenditure is, or (when incurred) will be, expenditure to which an addition made under this section in respect of that event may be attributed in accordance with subsection (5) below;”.

(2) In subsection (4) of that section (relief not to apply where expenditure on new shipping not incurred by the shipowner within six years), for the words from the beginning of paragraph (b) onwards there shall be substituted the following—

“(b) circumstances arise in which the whole or any part of the addition ceases (otherwise than by being attributed) to be an amount that may be attributed, in accordance with subsection (5) below, to expenditure on new shipping incurred by qualifying persons in the period of six years mentioned in subsection (3)(b) above,

the shipowner shall be assumed not to have been entitled to so much of the addition as will not be so attributed.”

(3) For subsection (5) of that section (attribution of relief to expenditure on new shipping) there shall be substituted the following subsections—

“(5) Subject to subsection (5A) below and to section 33D(6), where—

(a) an addition is made under this section to the shipowner’s qualifying expenditure for the relevant period in respect of his actual trade, and

(b) expenditure on new shipping is incurred by a qualifying person in the period of six years mentioned in subsection (3)(b) above,

the shipowner may, by notice to an officer of the Board, attribute to that expenditure so much of the addition as is equal to so much of the expenditure as is not already the subject of an attribution under this subsection.

(5A) A notice under subsection (5) above shall not have effect in a case where the shipowner and the qualifying person to whose expenditure the notice relates are not the same person unless that person joins with the shipowner in the giving of that notice.”

(4) After subsection (7) of that section there shall be inserted the following subsection—

“(8) In this section and the following provisions of this Chapter references to a qualifying person, in relation to any expenditure, are references to—

(a) the shipowner; and

(b) where the shipowner is a company, any company which, at the time when the expenditure is or is to be incurred, is or (as the case may be) would be a member of the same group of companies as the shipowner;

and for the purposes of this subsection two companies are members of the same group of companies at any time if, at that time, they are treated as members of the same group of companies for the purposes of Chapter IV of Part X of the principal Act (group relief).”