Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003 section 552

Attribution of interest in company to beneficiary or associate

Section 552 deals with how an individual (or their associate) who receives a payment from an employee benefit trust may be treated as owning a percentage of the company's ordinary share capital, even if they do not actually hold those shares.

• Where an individual (B) or an associate of B has received a payment from an employee benefit trust after 13 March 1989, and the trust held ordinary shares in the company at any point during the three years before that payment, special attribution rules apply.
• B or the associate is treated as having been the beneficial owner of the "appropriate percentage" of the company's ordinary share capital on the date the payment was received.
• This deemed ownership is added on top of any shares that B or the associate actually owned on that date.
• The meaning of "the appropriate percentage" is defined in section 553.