Don’t mix up your property investments with your main business

Entrepreneur startup business model

There are lots of good reasons to keep property investments in their own companies rather than mix them up with your main business activity.

We have a blog explaining why residential investments should be in a company https://stevejbicknell.com/2015/08/24/5-reasons-why-you-need-a-property-investment-company/

Entrepreneurs Relief when you sell your business is one of the major reasons not to have property in your trading business as significant Non Trading Activity will be a problem, if a business contains investments and if these were more than 20% in terms of turnover, net assets, time spent by directors or profit it could mean that your business is not counted as a trading business.

What is Entrepreneurs Relief

Entrepreneurs Tax Relief applies if you sell or close your business and means that you only pay 10% Capital Gains Tax on any qualifying profits.

There’s no limit to how many times you can claim Entrepreneurs’ Relief, and you can claim up to £10 million of relief in total during your lifetime.

Companies

To claim Entrepreneurs’ Relief you must:

  • own at least 5% of the shares in the business for a year
  • be a director, partner or employee of the business

Sole traders

To claim Entrepreneurs’ Relief you must have been trading for at least a year.

Full details are on the HMRC Helpsheet HS275

steve@bicknells.net

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