The new investment trust rules

New tax rules apply for accounting periods of investment trusts beginning this year. The new rules have been widely welcomed and, as well as altering the conditions that must be met to qualify as an investment trust, they borrow successful innovations from the authorised investment fund, REIT and offshore funds tax regimes. A new one-off advance approval process has been introduced as has a mechanism for dealing with breaches. In addition a ‘white list’ of transactions that are not to be considered trading has been introduced which gives a helpful measure of certainty.