Commentary on Sections Overview Chapter 2: Property businesses Section 204: Meaning of “property business”
760.This section defines “property business”. It is new.
761.Subsection (1) reflects the fact that section 70A of ICTA applies the same basic rules for income from UK land to income from overseas land. So most of the provisions in this Part apply to both UK and overseas property businesses alike. Where they do not, the particular section makes that clear by, for example, referring to a UK property business only.
762.The term “property business” is not entirely straightforward. The term used in the source legislation, “Schedule A business”, was introduced as part of the 1995 reform of Schedule A for income tax and was applied to corporation tax in 1998. That concept was helpful in providing a vessel to contain all the income from land previously charged under Schedule A and to which the rules for calculating trade profits could be applied. But the concept of a Schedule A business, and a UK property business, is rather more complex than that of a trade. That is reflected in this and the other sections that, together, define the range of income that is assessed as income of a property business.