Seddon & ors v HMRC [2015] UKFTT 140

Wills & Trusts Law Reports | July/August 2015 #151

The appellants were trustees of a discretionary settlement settled in 1999. The settlement’s original assets were five £1 ordinary shares in a limited company. In 2000 the settlement received a scrip dividend of preference shares in the company. The preference shares were sold by the trustees two days after their receipt. Their value was £1,382,750. Some nine years later and a few days before the settlement’s ten year anniversary the trustees made a distribution worth £1,260,361 to certain beneficiaries.

The principal issues concerning were:

  1. 1. Whether the...

Tax: Practically perfect in every way?

James Hardaker and Daniel Baker look at a case which demonstrates the difficulties trustees face when dealing with tax on royalties ‘Where trustees receive income which is to be accumulated or which is payable at the discretion of the trustees or any person, that income is taxable at the special trust rate or at the …
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JP Gilchrist Trust v HMRC Case number: FTC/89/2012

Wills & Trusts Law Reports | September 2014 #142

Mr Gilchrist settled property on trust on 17 May 1993. Under the terms of the trust, he was entitled to a life interest in the trust property. On 4 June 1993, the trustees exercised an overriding power of appointment to appoint 20% of the fund (the appointed fund) out of the main fund, on discretionary trust for the benefit of members of Mr Gilchrist’s family. Mr Gilchrist and his spouse were excluded from any benefit in the discretionary trust. Mr Gilchrist then gifted £44,000 to the trustees. The trustees used the funds to contribute to Whitecroft Limited, in which the trust held...

Travers Will Trust v HMRC [2013] UKFTT 436 (TC)

Wills & Trusts Law Reports | December 2013 #135

PL Travers (PLT) was the creator of the fictional literary character of Mary Poppins. In 1960 PLT entered into an agreement with Walt Disney which assigned parts of her copyright in the character to him. In this agreement PLT undertook not to exploit her dramatic, TV or radio rights in relation to Mary Poppins without Walt Disney’s consent.

PLT died in April 1996, two years after she had made an agreement with a theatre production company (CML) which related to the grant of an exclusive copyright licence to stage a show based on her books (the 1994 agreement). This agreement provi...