The transactions in securities (TiS) legislation is anti-avoidance legislation aimed at situations where close company shareholders have engineered a disposal of shares to obtain a beneficial capital gains tax (CGT) rate, ie avoid income tax, on specified transactions. Note there are also TiS rules for corporate tax purposes. These are to all intents and purposes redundant as companies are generally exempt from corporation tax on dividends and cannot, therefore, be said to be avoiding corporation tax on income if, instead, they receive capital sums. However, the corporate tax provisions have not been repealed in case some complex avoidance schemes would then become available to the corporate sector.

The targeted anti-avoidance rule (TAAR) which aims to combat cases of ‘phoenixism’ applies to certain distributions made in the process of winding up companies on or after 6 April 2016. Prior to April 2016, such transactions were usually covered by the TiS regime. The TAAR was introduced to provide absolute certainty of treatment