FA98/S140 phased out retirement relief over 5 years. Reductions
in the relief due commenced in 1999-2000, and the relief was
reduced in stages. No relief was due from 6 April 2003. See CG63861
(
LLM10000) for details of the maximum
relief available in each year.
Before 6 April 2003, when a member resigned from
Lloyd’s and sold all of their syndicate capacity, subject to
meeting the other conditions for relief (having carried on the
trade for at least one year, and being aged 50 or over, or retired
on ill-health grounds), then relief was available on gains on the
disposal of business assets.
Shares and securities and other assets held as investments
were specifically excluded from being business assets for
retirement relief purposes (TCGA 92/SCH6/PARA12 – a separate
kind of retirement relief on disposals of shares or securities in a
‘personal company’ was not relevant to Names). In
practice, retirement relief usually only applied to disposals of
syndicate capacity.
To satisfy the condition that the business has been carried
on for more than 12 months, the determining factor was the length
of time that an individual had been an underwriting member of
Lloyd’s, and not how long the member had participated on the
syndicates in which the capacity was sold.
Retirement relief was also available where there has been a
disposal of part of a business. To qualify as a part disposal of
the business, it was not sufficient merely to sell off some of the
assets of the business, nor to reduce the overall level of business
activity: there had to be a clear disposal of an identifiable part
of the business.
Reducing the amount of business written, or the number of
syndicate participations, was unlikely to be any more than a
reduction in size of the business. In the context of the business
of underwriting as member of Lloyd’s, there was no change in
the scale or nature of underwriting that would qualify as a
disposal of part of the business.
