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cover over a tennis court,184 and a floating ship used as a restaurant.185 These failed the business test since they performed no function in the trade. Many of these cases now appear in the statutory list of assets which cannot qualify as plant. Permanent quarantine kennels,186 putting greens at a nine-hole golf course187 and a car-washing facility operated on a conveyor belt system188 probably met the business test, but certainly failed the premises test. On the other hand, it has been held that a silo used in the trade of grain importing was not simply part of the setting and had to be considered together with the machinery and other equipment within it.189 Similarly, a swimming pool at a caravan site was held to be plant since it was part of the apparatus of the business.190 Also held to be plant were decorative screens placed in the windows of a building society’s offices (since the screens were not the structure within which the business was carried on),191 and, perhaps surprisingly, mezzanine platforms installed by a wholesale merchant to increase storage space.192 In the celebrated House of Lords’ case of IRC v Scottish and Newcastle Breweries Ltd193 murals designed to attract customers were held to be plant, as was a metal seagull sculpture and other items designed to create ‘ambience’. |
These cases prove the old adage that an ounce of evidence (before the Commissioners) is worth a ton of law. Of the 12 cases reported between 1975 and 1997, seven were cases in which the Revenue successfully appealed against a commissioner’s determination that the items were plant, one was a successful appeal by a taxpayer against a commissioner’s decision in favour of the Revenue, in two the court agreed with the Commissioners that the items were plant, and in two the Commissioners had originally decided that some items were plant, but the court subsequently decided that more items were plant. Of the items which the courts have decided are plant, one or two have now been set out in the non-plant category by the statutory list.194 |
24A.2.5 First Year Allowances |
24A.2.5.1 General |
| First year allowances were abolished by FA 1984, with a saving for transitional relief for certain regional projects in development areas.195 Today, there are four such allowances. The first applies, at the rate of 40% to small or medium-sized enterprises. Having been solemnly re-enacted each year since 1997–1998, but not necessarily with the same rates, first year allowances were made |