Top and bottom: a selection of coins found on the Hinton Estate.
Middle: Jude and Andrew Blois at Halesworth Museum where the treasure is now on display.
Jude adds: “We have an arrangement with a local metal detectorist who we know to be careful and responsible; he’s also a tennis coach and an electrician, so he’s a man of many talents! He is the only person we allow to detect on our land, and anyone else who wants to search has to work under his supervision. The coins that he found were declared as treasure by the Suffolk Coroner and retained by the Crown. They have now been acquired by Halesworth Museum, and a reward was given which was split between us as the landowners, and the finder of the hoard.” We have had several other exciting finds on the estate, including Stone Age flints, and a hoard of metal castings from a Bronze Age foundry which is still going through the coroner’s court. But these discoveries are obviously assets, even though we had no idea of their value when they were found. So we got in touch with Scrutton Bland for some advice!” What are the Tax Implications for Treasure? Graham Doubtfire, Private Client Tax Partner has been dealing with this rather unusual case and explains when tax needs to be paid. “On the basis that the items found are defined as treasure within the definition above, they are subject to tax as follows.
Where the treasure found is retained by the Crown, ex gratia rewards paid have no tax consequences. The rewards are pure gifts of cash and are not chargeable to Capital Gains Tax. However, where the treasure is not retained by the Crown, the Crown’s title is disclaimed and the treasure is returned, the subsequent disposal of this is subject to Capital Gains Tax (or CGT). The base cost of the treasure for CGT purposes is the market value of the treasure on the date of the gift by the Crown. What this means in most cases is that unless there is a significant time interval between the treasure not being retained and it being sold, we would need to include the proceeds received (and the cost would be the same amount as that would be assumed to be the market value of the treasure on the date of the gift by the Crown). In the case of the treasure found on the Hinton Estate, the Partnership Tax Return reflected the fact that the income from the reward they were paid by the Crown was non-taxable and this then flowed through to their Personal Tax Returns as a reduced non-taxable Partners Profit Share.
This was a fascinating piece of work, and we very much enjoy being challenged by unusual cases which require a slightly different approach to usual. Our Private Client tax team has an in-depth knowledge of personal tax matters, which enables us to provide specialist assistance to high-net-worth clients, even if you don’t have gold coins buried on your land!” To speak to a member of the team please call 0330 058 6559 or emails hello@scruttonbland.co.uk
AGRICULTURE AND FARMING | SCRUTTON BLAND | 5
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