A major global rolling stock OEM sold its UK rolling stock maintenance operations to a new franchise operator and became aware of a potential stamp duty tax liability.
They turned to Hickman Shearer to provide advice to understand the potential liability in relation to the transfer of the large rolling stock maintenance plant and equipment.
To gauge the extent of the project and gather a true insight, we visited the site and reconciled each asset on site. This involved allocating each asset certain pre-determined categories, each of which were treated differently for taxation.
We then performed the required detailed research and analysis to allocate a market value to each asset and hence a total for each of the tax categories.
As a result of our work the seller was able to understand the full tax liability pre-deal close. Then from this to effectively negotiate with the tax authorities and minimise the exposure.