Examining the scope of FA 2003 s 75A

FA 2003 s 75A was introduced by FA 2007 to combat certain SDLT tax planning techniques. Like much modern tax legislation it was deliberately widely drafted in order to catch planning techniques unknown at the time but which might be invented in the future; to frustrate to use Donald Rumsfeld’s much-quoted phrase ‘unknown unknowns’.

In this article I test the scope of s 75A against an example (below) of transactions entered into with no tax avoidance purpose whatsoever in order to explore its limits its uncertainties and anomalies and to show how taxpayers while undertaking quite straightforward transactions might fall within a provision which many assume applies only to highly complex and artificial tax planning. (All statutory references are to...