BIM55115 - Farming in tax law: all farming by same person treated as one trade
S9(2) Income Tax (Trading and Other Income) Act 2005, S36(2) Corporation Tax Act 2009
The legislation requires that all the farming carried on in the United Kingdom by a particular person, whether individual, company, partnership or other body of persons, should be treated as a single trade. But, where an individual carries on farming activities both as a sole trader and as a partner, or as a member of two different partnerships, the separate activities are treated as separate trades. The profits of a person who carries on farming activities, in the same capacity, at more than one farm should be computed in a single sum.
A person who:
- removes from one farm to another without an interval, or
- gives up a portion of his land, or
- takes over additional land (whether or not he or she succeeds to the trade of his predecessor on that land)
is therefore chargeable on the basis of a continuing trade notwithstanding the change (see Bispham v Eardiston Farming Co (1919) Ltd [1962] 40TC322).
Where there is an interval between the discontinuance at one farm and commencement at another, the farming should be treated as discontinued and a new trade as having commenced only where the facts support the conclusion that there was a permanent discontinuance of the original trade (see BIM80500 onwards).