Taxes Consolidation Act 1997 section 697Q

Ten year disqualification from re-entry into tonnage tax

Section 697Q imposes a ten-year exclusion period on a company that leaves the tonnage tax regime other than on the normal expiry of its tonnage tax election, preventing it from re-electing into tonnage tax during that period.

• A company that ceases to be a tonnage tax company otherwise than on the expiry of its election is barred from making a new company election for ten years from the date it left the regime.
• A group election that would bring a former tonnage tax company back into the regime is also ineffective if made within the same ten-year exclusion period.
• The exclusion does not prevent a company entering tonnage tax under the merger and takeover rules in Part 4 of Schedule 18B.
• A "former tonnage tax company" is defined as a company that is not currently a tonnage tax company but has previously been one.