TTM07450 - The ring fence: Finance cost adjustment
Computational principles
The calculation of the excess finance costs for an accounting period will involve the following stages:
i) Determine the total UK-deductible finance costs of the tonnage tax group that are taken into account in computing profits arising outside the ring-fence (after any statutory disallowances including transfer-pricing adjustments). Intra-group finance costs with a corresponding direct receipt chargeable to UK corporation tax (outside the ring fence) in the same accounting period elsewhere in the group do not need to be counted for this purpose.
ii) Determine the total UK-deductible finance costs of the tonnage tax group, as if there were no tonnage tax election in place. This could be approximated by the amount determined in (i) above, plus finance costs charged in the calculation of relevant shipping profits. Intra-group finance costs with a corresponding contemporaneous UK taxable receipt that were not counted under (i) above should again be ignored here.
iii) Determine the proportionate amount of the costs calculated in (ii) that cannot be regarded as being incurred so as to give rise, directly or indirectly, to relevant shipping profits. This should be done on a just and reasonable basis having regard to the underlying funding and the generation of relevant shipping profits. Further guidance is given below.
iv) Calculate the excess of (i) over (iii), if any.
v) Allocate this excess to the tonnage tax companies in proportion to their tonnage tax profits.
Stages (i) to (iv) can be represented by the following formulae, which are used to facilitate the examples below:
E = A - (F x B)
IF (F x B) > A THEN E = 0
where:
E is the excess finance costs to be allocated to the tonnage tax companies.
A is the group finance costs that can be taken into account outside the ring-fence (before the application of paragraph 62).
B is the group finance costs determined as if there were no tonnage tax election in place.
F is a just and reasonable fraction.
Where there are non-coterminous accounting periods, the periods should be matched using any just and reasonable method.
References
| Finance costs of singleton company | TTM07420 |
| Finance costs of group companies | TTM07430 |