Loss of loss relief

THIS ARTICLE BEGINS with a plea to practitioners who advise small or medium-sized enterprises not to turn the page just because they start to believe (almost certainly incorrectly) that the subject matter of this article is unlikely to apply to them. Any practitioner advising companies small or large should keep reading. The reality is that many more small or medium-sized enterprises need to be up to speed with the issues addressed below than do larger companies.

A number of unquoted companies have failed to claim a valuable relief introduced by the Finance Act 2000. However there is no need to panic as there may still be time to make a claim. To add to the confusion the Finance Act 2002 has had a surprising impact on the relief in question. The purpose of this short article is therefore to highlight an important but...