Mark McLaughlin looks at pre-owned assets tax and the ‘occupation’ of land and buildings.
‘Pre-owned assets tax’ (POAT) is an income tax charge (FA 2004, Sch 15), which was originally introduced to block certain inheritance tax (IHT) anti-avoidance arrangements. However, it can have unintended and unfortunate consequences in some cases.
The POAT rules broadly charge income tax on benefits received by former owners of three types of assets (i.e., land and property, chattels, or intangibles in a settlement) where certain conditions are satisfied. This article focuses on land and property.
Land and property
In essence, if an individual has either disposed of land (or other property, if used by another person to acquire the land) (the ‘disposal condition’), or has contributed towards the cost of the land, etc. (the &lsquo
