Commentary on Sections Part 2: Charge to corporation tax: basic provisions Overview
81.This Chapter gives the statutory rules for company residence outside double taxation conventions.
82.The rules on company residence are both statutory and non-statutory. The oldest of the company residence rules (“central management and control”) is based on common law.
83.The central management and control test is generally considered to be best expressed in De Beers Consolidated Mines v Howe (1905), 5 TC 198 HC. “A company resides, for the purposes of Income Tax, where its real business is carried on … I regard that as the true rule; and the real business is carried on where the central management and control actually abides”. This has been endorsed by subsequent decisions and was described by Lord Radcliffe in Bullock v Unit Construction Company (1959), 38 TC 712 HL as being “as precise and unequivocal as a positive statutory injunction”.
84.Residence may also be determined by the tie-breaker in a double taxation convention. When a company is resident in the territory of both parties a tie-breaker generally awards residence to the country where the effective management of the company is situated.
85.The two main statutory rules are found in section 66 of FA 1988 and section 249 of FA 1994. These two tests are rewritten in this Chapter.
86.Under section 66 of FA 1988 a company incorporated in the United Kingdom is, with some exceptions, regarded as resident here for all tax purposes. This overrides the rule in common law given above, although the common law test continues for companies outside section 66, that is to say companies which are not incorporated in the United Kingdom.
87.Section 249 of FA 1994 treats a company resident in the United Kingdom under the common law test or section 66 of FA 1998 as being non-UK resident if the tie-breaker in the double taxation treaty between the United Kingdom and that other territory would make the company resident outside the United Kingdom.
88.Both these statutory rules apply for the purposes of the Taxes Acts as defined in section 118 of TMA (see section 66(1) and 66A(2) of FA 1988 and section 249(1) of FA 1994). This Act rewrites the rules for the purposes of the Corporation Tax Acts only. Because the Corporation Tax Acts are defined more narrowly (Schedule 1 to the Interpretation Act 1978) than the Taxes Acts, Schedule 1 to this Act inserts new sections into TMA, TCGA and ITA to apply the rules given in this Chapter to those Acts.