Tax Aspects of Buying and Selling Companies

Martyn Ingles BSc FCA ATII, qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1982 and has specialised in taxation ever since. He became an Associate member of the Chartered Institute of Taxation in 1983 whilst working for Arthur Andersen in London. For ten years he worked for The Financial Training Company Ltd, lecturing in taxation and other accounting subjects to students preparing for their accountancy and taxation examinations, as well as CPE and CPD courses. In January 1997 he returned to professional practice joining Horwath Clark Whitehill, where he became a partner in October 1998. His main area of interest is tax planning for the family business and he lectures on this and other taxation issues on both internal and external courses. A member of the ICAEW Tax Faculty committee and its honorary treasurer, he joined MacIntyre Hudson in April 2000 where he continues to be involved in the provision of taxation training for accountants, lawyers and other professionals.

1 Introduction; 2 Taxation issues; 3 Sale of assets or sale of shares?; 4 Inland Revenue clearances and anti-avoidance in general; 5 Advising the purchaser; 6 Protecting losses; 7 Warranties and indemnities; 8 Case study: a corporate vendor; 9 Hive downs and management buy-outs; Appendix; 1 Summary of IR20; 2 Stock dividend scheme; 3 Impact of pre-sale dividend; 4 Using loan notes; 5 Deferred consideration; 6 Taxation of the income of discretionary trusts.