Corporation Tax Act 2010 section 444

Companies involved with non-close companies

Section 444 provides an exemption from close company status for companies that are controlled by, or whose close company classification depends upon, non-close companies.

• A company escapes close company status if it is controlled by one or more non-close companies and can only be treated as close by counting a non-close company among the five or fewer participators needed for that classification.
• A company also escapes close company status if it would only be close because of certain deeming provisions relating to associates of participators or rights attributable to loan creditors, and those provisions would not apply once non-close company loan creditors are excluded from the definition of participators.
• Only one of these two conditions needs to be met for the exemption to apply.
• For both conditions, references to a close company include any non-UK resident company that would be close if it were UK resident.