This client came to us on recommendation from East London. The client had transferred a property to their relative as part of an ongoing internal family arrangement. On the face of it, there was a transfer between connected people and therefore subject to a substantial capital gains tax liability. We considered the case and background and found that the person to whom the property was transferred had retained beneficial ownership of the property throughout the period of ownership by the nominee owner and that there was a deemed trust in place. We discussed the idea with our client and applied to HMRC for a ruling that there was no tax to be paid considering the structuring of the ownership. After waiting for approximately 8 weeks, we received a positive ruling from HMRC confirming that our technical analysis of the ownership structure and of deemed trust was correct and therefore no capital gains tax was payable. This was great news for our client as a potentially substantial tax liability was no longer payable in accordance with the tax legislation.
Our analysis: This was a complex matter and required in depth specialist knowledge of the tax legislation and legal/ beneficial ownership structures. Whilst a tax specialist will no doubt cost more than an ordinary accountant but can bring much larger savings in tax. In this case the additional fee was a fraction of the tax savings brought for our client.