In October 2008 it was announced that the trust was being wound up and its assets transferred to a new limited company named The Scott Trust Limited.[2] The purpose of this change was to facilitate the avoidance of a capital gains tax liability arising on the disposal of the trusts interest in AutoTrader. Not being a company, the trust did not qualify for the Substantial Shareholdings Exemption on the disposal of a wholly owned trading subsidiary, but by forming the Scott Trust Ltd and dissolving the Trust and distributing the assets of the trust to the new company from which the disposal was made the company was able to avoid over £100 million in tax.
Naughty, naughty.
At least Barclays didn\’t fiddle around with corporate structures when it took the same SSE.
Any news on the question of who the shareholders of The Scott Trust Ltd are?
Looks like a nice safe IP to use:
http://toolserver.org/~chm/whois.php?ip=86.139.226.124
In case that comment was obscure, for anyone interested in tracking wikipedia stuff:
The page history is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Scott_Trust&action=history
A little looking confirms that the text Timmy is talking about was added by:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Scott_Trust&diff=415299794&oldid=404127984
You can then look up that IPs contributions:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/86.139.226.124
which are few, and you can then try and find out who it is:
http://toolserver.org/~chm/whois.php?ip=86.139.226.124
which is the link I posted. But it turns out to be a generic BT IP, so I think the trail dies there, hence my comment that it is a nice safe IP. It doesn’t resolve to Portugal, anyway 🙂
Tim adds: I honoured that you might think it would ressolve to Portugal. Means you think, against all possibility, that I have the technical nous to be able to edit Wikipedia.
Turns out that pukka Progressive poo smells worse than filthy capitalist poo. Who would have guessed, knowing their righteous fervour?
Worstofall; it does not seem that the Trust owned the shares in Auto Trader. They were owned by GMG Plc. As such SSE applied even though the ultimate holder was a trust. Posts some months ago on this blog suggested that the GMG claiming SSE was a form of tax avoidance. If the conditions for SSE apply then it is mandatory (for obvious reasons). There is no question of making a “claim”.
Tim adds: This is exactly the thing that we’re all trying to find out. Did the change from the Scott Trust to the Scott Trust Limited change the way in which the capital gain from the sale of Autotrader was treated for tax?
At present I don’t know but I have a suspicion that it did. Which is why I am asking those I know who know about tax whether it did or not.
Whichever way around it goes, would be interesting to find out, wouldn’t it?
If you go to the GMG plc website and click on The Scott Trust link, you don’t find any mention of the fact that the Trust was wound up in 2008 and replaced by a limited company until right at the end of the ‘History’ link, which is a good half a dozen clicks in. You have to really search to find it out. Even then its just a 2 line bit, with a link to press release from 2008.
Everywhere else never mentions the Ltd bit after The Scott Trust. Its as if they didn’t want people to realise the old trust was gone and replaced by a company………………….
Jim: On the other hand if you go to google (it’s a search engine) and type in “”Scott Trust” guardian” the first hit you get is the announcement of the winding up of the Trust.
Anyway what about my SSE point?
Why have posts been deleted on this thread?
Tim adds: They haven’t been.