Commentary on Sections Overview Overview Section 169: Cemeteries and crematoria: introduction
696.This section, and the following three sections, contain special rules for persons carrying on a trade of operating a cemetery or crematorium. They are based on section 91 of ICTA.
697.Without special provisions, no allowance would be due for the cost of land sold for interments, memorial gardens attached to crematoria or the surrounding land and buildings because expenditure on such land and buildings is in the nature of capital. The provisions in sections 169 to 172 recognise that most land and buildings in a cemetery or memorial garden are of little value when the cemetery or memorial garden is full.
698.This section introduces the provisions in section 170 to 172 and defines some of the terms used in those sections. It is based on section 91(1),(2),(5),(7) and (8) of ICTA.
699.Section 91(7)(a) of ICTA adapts the rules for cemeteries in section 91 of ICTA to crematoria and treats “land which is devoted wholly to memorial garden plots” as a cemetery, or as land in a cemetery. Subsection (1) of this section instead includes the carrying on of a crematorium, and the maintenance of “memorial gardens plots” in the trades to which sections 169 to 172 apply.
700.Subsection (4) is based on the definition of “relevant capital expenditure” in section 91(2) of ICTA.
701.Section 91(5) of ICTA provides that a change of ownership is ignored in calculating the relief due to the person then carrying on the trade. So subsection (4) of this section includes expenditure incurred by “a predecessor” of the person carrying on the trade (“the trader”) in the definition of ancillary capital expenditure.