Corporation Tax Relief Reintroduced for Acquired Goodwill

A further late change to the Finance Bill will re-introduce relief for acquired goodwill on the acquisition of businesses with eligible intellectual property from 1 April 2019.

This relief was withdrawn back in July 2015 and the restoration of relief for goodwill and customer-related assets is very welcome although the new form of relief will be more restricted.

The proposed new relief will be given at a fixed rate of 6.5% on up to 6 times the value of any qualifying intellectual property assets in the business being acquired. Qualifying assets will include patents, registered designs, copyright and design rights and plant breeders’ rights. This means that the qualifying costs will be written off over just over 15 years and will not follow the treatment in the company accounts as currently applies to other intangibles.