Readers’ forum: Does business carry out trading activity for BADR?

The business of this close company is the trading of quoted shares. The husband and wife who are directors/shareholders carry out around ten transactions per annum spending around five hours a day following a specific work pattern of analysing and assessing and selecting the characteristics and merits of individual companies. Each transaction (purchase or sale) has a value of around £150 000.

There have been net gains from sales for the last few years of an average of £300 000 on a portfolio cost and market value of £5m and £20m respectively.

The couple have no other business interests and the query relates to whether HMRC would consider the company to have trading activity for the purposes of business asset disposal relief in the event that the company were to close and distribute the proceeds to the shareholders and also considering...