I wonder if anyone has considered the issue of control for the purposes of APR relief for Groups? The situation I have is that the shares in the APR company are held by the parent company not the transferor directly. As the agricultural land is let to a tenanted farmer and not farmed or occupied directly and there is no trade within this sub we would be relying on APR on this subsidiary.
So whilst transferor has control of parent co it isn’t clear whether this extends to the subsidiaries as these are technically controlled by the parent co and the transferor does not hold any shares directly in the subsidiary.
S122 IHTA1984 extends APR in a company situation where
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the agricultural property forms part of the company assets and part of the value of the shares or securities can be attributed to the agricultural value of agricultural land, and
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the shares or securities gave the transferor control of the company immediately before the transfer, IHTA84/S122 (1)(b).
The definition of control is within s269 IHTA1984 which basically says:
(1) For the purposes of this Act a person has control of a company at any time if he then has the control of powers of voting on all questions affecting the company as a whole which if exercised would yield a majority of the votes capable of being exercised on them.
My feeling is that as the 100% shareholder of a 100% subsidiary it could be argued as control but I can’t find anything within HMRC commentary confirming this or giving me comfort. Does anyone have any experience or thoughts?