§ Mrs. LaitTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how the Inland Revenue will treat, for tax purposes, stocks of beef held by butchers ready for sale whose value has been eroded by the collapse of the beef market. [23769]
§ Mr. JackThe same rules on trading stock will apply to butchers as to other traders.
An accountant will draw up a traders' accounts using the normal accounting conventions. These conventions recognise trading stock losses and deal with them appropriately in the accounts. Tax treatment follows these conventions and allows for the profits and losses of trading stock when working out the taxable income. Butchers' stock losses will be treated in the same way as the stock losses of any other trader.