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General Principles definition

What does General Principles mean? In takeover practice, General Principles are the high‑level standards that guide how the Takeover Code (UK) and the Irish Takeover Rules are interpreted and applied in real transactions. They set expectations of commercial behaviour by bidders, target boards and advisers. There are six General Principles, mirroring the general principles in Article 3 of the EU Takeover Directive. In the UK they are contained in the Code notwithstanding Brexit; in Ireland they derive from the Directive and are embedded in the Rules. They are expressed in broad terms and neither the Code nor the Rules defines the precise limits of their...

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UK Capital Gains Tax on Trusts: Principles, Actual and Deemed Disposals, Reliefs, Rates and Liabilities

Practice notes
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General Principles

For Capital gains tax (CGT) purposes, trustees are regarded as a single chargeable person in their own right, distinct from the individual trustees. Although people often speak of trusts as if they, like a company, had their own separate legal personality, it is crucial to remember they do not. The process for working out a chargeable gain arising to trustees is largely the same as that used for an individual.

Trustees may choose to sell trust assets where, acting in line with their duties as trustees (see Practice Note: Trustees—duties), they believe this best serves the beneficiaries’ interests. Where trust property is in fact disposed of by an arm’s length sale to an unconnected third party, the computational Rules use the consideration received for the disposal to calculate the chargeable gain. Besides actual disposals of trust property, trustees can be deemed to make a disposal for CGT purposes. For instance, a deemed disposal occurs when a Beneficiary becomes absolutely entitled to the trust property...

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Paul Davies
Paul Davies

Paul Davies is a partner in the private client team of Clarke Willmott. He is a solicitor, a chartered tax advisor, and a member of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners, as well as being a chartered accountant (albeit no longer practising as such). He specialises in providing advice across the range of different tax and legal issues that face high net worth individuals, executors, and trustees.Paul's work spans all areas of private client work, including wills, trusts of all kind, inheritance tax, succession planning, probate and estate administration, and lasting powers of attorney. Paul acts as a professional trustee for a number of family trusts, and is also regularly called on to act as a professional executor....

Web page updated on 22/05/2026

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