Mark McLaughlin looks at when preparing to carry on a trade can count towards a company’s two-year trading requirement for business asset disposal relief purposes.
Business asset disposal relief (BADR) is a popular and useful capital gains tax (CGT) relief for individual business owners. It offers a CGT rate of 14% (for 2025/26) on chargeable gains from qualifying business disposals, subject to a lifetime limit of £1m (NB the BADR rate increases to 17% for disposals from 2026/27, thus reducing the value of the relief).
When does the clock start ticking?
BADR is subject to certain conditions, which generally vary depending on whether the business in question is unincorporated, or operated through a company. However, there is a requirement in most cases for a business or a trading company’s shares to have been owned
