Still time to claim tax relief for your buildings expenditure

HMRC have issued the expected consultation paper outlining their plans to change the rules. The most important impact of then new rules will block off the possibility of making claims for costs incurred many years previously. We feared they could have blocked the look back immediately. They have not. So businesses still have the opportunity to look back over their buildings expenditure – no matter how long ago – and make capital allowances claims now.

There’s more on what needs to be done now in our April MTI.

HMRC have invited responses to their proposals. Mazars have identified that one proposal is likely to cause difficulty. HMRC propose when a business sells a building the lowest value that the vendor and purchaser can attribute to the plant and machinery within the building will be the vendor’s tax written down value. As well as removing the flexibility of the current rules, the pooling system of capital allowance makes it difficult in practice to determine this amount.

Mazars will be making representations to the HMRC document.

We would be pleased to discuss the impact of these proposals on your business and if you will be adversely affected assist with drawing HMRC’s attention to the difficulty.