If you have a company that was previously a Loss Attributing Qualifying Company (LAQC) and you did not elect to convert the company into the new Look Through Company (LTC) regime or disband the company into a sole trader or partnership, you now have a second window of opportunity to consider whether you want to make any of these transitions.
In other words, if you did nothing with your LAQC following the commencement of the new regime on 1 April 2011 and you are not sure whether that is the right action, then you should be contacting GRA now as you have a second bite of the cherry.
The Options
As a reminder, if you have a Qualifying Company (bearing in mind that the company will no longer have the ability to attribute tax losses to shareholders so is known as a QC rather than an LAQC), you have the following four options:
Some Considerations
If you have a QC that is producing tax losses, it may well be that you are best off making the transition into the LTC regime to allow release of those tax losses. Although you will have missed one year of loss attribution by not making the election during the first window of opportunity, you will at least release the tax losses from the 2013 financial year onwards. Tax losses from the 2012 year where the company was a QC are not forfeited but can only be offset against future taxable profit of the LTC.
Summary
In summary, if you had an LAQC leading into the rule change on 1 April 2011 and you have not taken any action in respect of this company, then you have a second window of opportunity to reconsider the tax position of the company. This window closes on 30 September 2012 so now is the time to take action. Please contact us at GRA if you wish to discuss your QC with us.
This letter is to express my appreciation for the assistance and encouragement of both Anthony Lipscombe and particularly John Heaslip over the last financial year. The period since activating my trading trust has been one of considerable stress, as well as personal development, as I embarked on this as a relative business neophyte with virtually no awareness of the contemporary requirements of running a business, particularly the financial records aspect. During much of this period I have therefore felt considerable out of my depth. However I have been lucky enough to have had the benefit of the advice and support of John Heaslip in rationalizing what was a fairly chaotic set of records of the first year property trading. I am able to say that John in particular, has been unstinting in his attention to my needs and has done so in a manner which has never alluded to my extremely rudimentary grasp of managing a business, or even of being unable to set out a spread sheet properly. The result of the above guidance is that now, although my trading trust would still not be able to operate without the advice of GRA, I do least feel a sense of satisfaction that I have got to my present point without major disaster and that my property trust does now have some kind of firmer basis for any future activities - Name withheld by request
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