In Gunfleet Sands Ltd v HMRC [2023] UKUT 260 (TCC) (26 October 2023) the Upper Tribunal (UT) concluded that capital allowances were not available for expenditure on various environmental and technical studies carried out prior to the construction of windfarms.
The taxpayers carried on the trade of generating and selling electricity from windfarms located on various sites off the UK coastline. They spent around £48m on various environmental impact studies technical/engineering studies (e.g. on wind ocean and seabed conditions) and on project management costs (the studies) prior to construction of the windfarms. The main issue was whether capital allowances were available in respect of this expenditure.
The UT first addressed an issue about what the ‘plant’ was in this case. This was to help determine whether the studies were expenditure ‘on the provision of’ that plant for capital allowances purposes. (It was not in dispute that expenditure on buying...
