Benefits on French holiday home!

[ian.wright@beechams.]

We have a client who owns shares in a French company which owns a French property. It was set up this way for flexability regarding French IHT rules.

It is simply a holiday home in France under a French company unbrella.

The client is a director and share holder.

The Inland Revenue in the UK want to try and tax him under accomodation benefit rules.

This is crazy! Can they?

[Taxbar]

Ian,

you are probably talking about a French SCI.

The benefits in kind issue is well established, though rare in practice.

The usual advice is to have an independent GERANT or manager of the SCI, a local agent!!. The IR have in correspondence accepted that in that situation there is no shadow director and no benefit in kind.

You need specialist tax advice to assist your client to fight the IR and to possibly re-organise the SCI for the future.


Daniel M Feingold
Barrister-at-law (NP)
Strategic Tax Planning
International & UK Tax Consultants
E-mail: info@stratax.co.uk