The SDLT giveaway?

FINANCE ACT 2006 will forever be tarred for its introduction of the new inheritance tax regime for trusts. But for all — and especially private client — practitioners the changes made to the FA 2003 Sch 15 stamp duty land tax (SDLT) regime for partnerships should not be overlooked.
The partnership SDLT regime has been with us since 23 July 2004 and in the time that has elapsed since then practitioners have been wrestling with largely unwelcome and often unexpected SDLT implications for partnerships where land is concerned. Quite often those results follow from the somewhat counter-intuitive principle that an interest in a partnership is defined not in terms of capital-sharing ratios as one might expect but in terms of income sharing ratios (FA 2003 Sch 15 para 34(2)).
All statutory references in this article are to FA...