Finance Act, 1956

PART V.

Initial Allowances: Income Tax, Sur-tax and Corporation Profits Tax.

Initial allowances.

23.—(1) Where, on or after the 6th day of April, 1956, a person carrying on a trade the profits or gains of which are (otherwise than consequent upon an election under Rule 5 of the Rules applicable to Schedule B of the Income Tax Act, 1918) chargeable under Case I of Schedule D of the Income Tax Act, 1918, incurs capital expenditure on the provision, for the purposes of the trade, of new machinery or new plant, other than vehicles suitable for the conveyance by road of persons or goods or the haulage by road of other vehicles, there shall be made to him, for the year of assessment in the basis period for which the expenditure is incurred, an allowance (in this Part of this Act referred to as an initial allowance) equal to one-fifth of the expenditure, and such allowance shall be made as a deduction in charging the profits or gains of the trade.

(2) Any expenditure incurred on or after the 6th day of April, 1956, for the purposes of a trade by a person about to carry it on shall be treated for the purposes of subsection (1) of this section as if it had been incurred by that person on the first day on which he does carry it on.

(3) For the purpose of this section capital expenditure shall not include any expenditure which is allowed to be deducted in computing, for the purposes of income tax, the profits or gains of a trade carried on by the person incurring the expenditure.

(4) For the purposes of this Part of this Act, the day on which any expenditure is incurred shall be taken to be the day when the sum in question becomes payable.

(5) Any claim by a person for an allowance under this section in charging the profits or gains of his trade shall be included in the annual statement required to be delivered under the Income Tax Acts of the profits or gains thereof and shall be accompanied by a certificate signed by the claimant, which shall be deemed to form part of the claim, stating that the expenditure was incurred on new machinery or new plant and giving such particulars as show that the allowance falls to be made.

(6) In this section, “new” means unused and not secondhand, provided that a ship shall be deemed to be new even if it has been used or is secondhand.