CA21200 | Plant and Machinery Allowances (PMA): meaning of plant and machinery: miscellaneous items that are plant

Accept that these items are plant:

• alarm and sprinkler systems,

• baths,

• wash basins,

• toilet suites,

• central heating systems, hot water systems, air conditioning systems and ventilation systems (all ‘integral features’ within CAA01/S33A, therefore if WDAs are claimed, they must be claimed at the special rate. See CA22300 onwards).

In order for fixtures and fittings to be plant they must be of a durable nature, that is they must satisfy the 2-year test CA21100, and they must be apparatus for the purposes of the trade. Treat furniture including carpets, curtains and linoleum and items like cutlery, crockery, glassware, linen, kitchen utensils and protective clothing in the same way.

A door handle would normally be an integral part of the door to which it is affixed, with the result that it would not qualify for PMAs. Any subsequent replacement of the door handle would then count as a repair of the door. However you should not in practice refuse a PMA claim where this is the treatment adopted in the computations. Some mechanical handles can in any event constitute machines in their own right. If you accept a PMA claim you should deal with any subsequent replacement through the pool of qualifying expenditure in the usual way.

If the taxpayer’s trade involves the creation of an attractive setting or atmosphere and the sale of that setting or atmosphere to customers, pictures and removable wall decorations specially chosen to help create that setting or atmosphere will be plant CA21130. Other pictures and removable wall decorations are not plant. They will not be apparatus with which the taxpayer carries on the trade.

In television hire businesses television sets that are hired out are plant or machinery.

You may have to deal with a business that both hires out television sets and sells them. If so, the television sets which are hired out will be plant if the hiring is a separate and distinct business activity and the stock of sets for hiring out is separate from the stock of sets for sale. If the trader takes sets to hire out from his general trading stock you should follow the guidance at CA11530 about assets appropriated from trading stock.

Treat assets like video recorders as you treat television sets.