EGL31000 - Groups: what is a group for EGL purposes?

EGL31000 – Groups: what is a group for EGL purposes?

The EGL is charged on the receipts of a “generating undertaking” which may be a single company or a group of companies. A group of companies for EGL purposes is defined by F(2)A23/S287 as including –

A company, referred to as the “principal member”, and all its 75% subsidiaries together with any 75% subsidiaries together with any 75% subsidiaries of those subsidiaries, and so on. The principal member being the company that is not itself a 75% subsidiary of any other company.

The 75% subsidiary requirement may be met by applying any of the following measures –

• entitlement to 75% or more of a company’s profits available for distribution to equity holders;
• entitlement to 75% or more of a company’s assets available for distribution to equity holders on a winding up’ or
• ownership of 75% or more of the company’s ordinary share capital.

As these are alternative conditions it would be possible for a company to be a member of more than one group without a further “tiebreaker” rule. In such a case, the rules apply in priority in the order that they are set out above.

F(2)A23/S307 applies the rules for group relief in Part 5 of CTA 2010 for the purposes of determining: who is an equity holder in a company and how to assess entitlement to profits or assets, and how to trace through indirect holdings. They also apply the rules to companies without share capital and adapt the rules where a group structure includes other entities or arrangements. See EGL76000.