Changes to Capital Allowances from 1st April 2014

Helen McGrath, Solicitor in Astle Paterson’s Corporate & Commercial Department warns that businesses should take financial advice to avoid losing out on unclaimed capital allowances.

Capital allowances are a means of providing tax relief to businesses and apply to fixtures in a commercial property.

As announced in the 2012 Finance Bill, from 1 April 2014 onwards, capital allowances must be identified and documented at the point of sale/purchase of a commercial property, or they will be lost forever.

To put matters in context, Catax Solutions (at the instructions of the Law Society) have concluded that circa 98,000 commercial property transactions which took place from April 2012 – April 2013 10,000 qualified for a capital allowances.

Therefore Helen McGrath concludes that “if a company is in the process of or considering selling any commercial property, they must take tax advice to avoid losing out on unclaimed capital allowances. If tax advice is not taken then valuable tax benefits may be lost if a property is sold and the capital allowances are not dealt with correctly.”

Helen McGrath is a Solicitor in Astle Paterson’s Corporate & Commercial Department and can be contacted on 01283 531366 or by email at hmcgrath@astlepaterson.co.uk