Carbon Capital fends off tax raid fears
Carbon trading company confident of securing buyer despite HMRC raid
A raid of its offices by HM Revenue & Customs has complicated the efforts
of Carbon Capital to sell its business.
The carbon trading company, which has £300m in investment, is facing an
investigation into whether it used investments in forestry, meant to generate
carbon credits under the Kyoto protocol, to evade tax.
The group’s Mayfair offices were raided in the middle of July and officials
removed documentation for examination, the FT reports. The raid came
just a few days before an EGM to discuss the possible sale of the company.
Carbon Capital has denied any wrongdoing and has said that it is cooperating
with authorities.
The dispute with HMRC is over whether Carbon Capital could write off all its
research costs into planting forests as R&D expenditure. Government moved to
close down the use of this R&D relief – known as sideways loss relief – in
forestry in the 2006 PBR.
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