The Supreme Court has begun hearing appeals by both sides against the Court of Session decision in Scottish Widows plc v HMRC [2010] STC 2133.
The case concerns the interpretation of FA 1989 s 83. The company had claimed that it had made Case I losses of more than £1 000 000 000 following its demutualisation. HMRC rejected the claim on the basis that the company’s computation ignored amounts which it had described as ‘transfers from capital reserve’.
The Special Commissioners upheld HMRC's contention that the effect of FA 1989 s 83(3) was that these ‘transfers’ had to be taken into account as receipts in computing the loss and the CS upheld this decision.
