Finance Act 1960

38 Exemptions and reliefs in respect of tax under s. 37

(1) Tax shall not be charged by virtue of the last foregoing section in respect of the following payments, that is to say—

(a) any payment made in connection with the termination of the holding of an office or employment by the death of the holder, or made on account of injury to or disability of the holder of an office or employment;

(b) any sum chargeable to surtax under section two hundred and forty-two of the Act of 1952 (consideration for certain restrictive covenants);

(c) a benefit provided in pursuance of any such scheme or agreement as is referred to in section three hundred and eighty-six of that Act, where the holder of the office or employment was chargeable to tax in respect of sums paid, or treated as paid, with a view to the provision of the benefit;

(d) a benefit paid in pursuance of any such scheme or fund as is described in subsection (1) and subsection (2) of section three hundred and eighty-seven of that Act (exemptions from charge to tax under the said section three hundred and eighty-six);

(e) any terminal grant, gratuity or other lump sum paid under any Royal Warrant, Queen's Order, or Order in Council relating to members of Her Majesty's forces, and any payment made in commutation of annual or other periodical payments authorised by any such Warrant or Order;

(f) a payment of benefit under any superannuation scheme administered by the government of an overseas territory within the Commonwealth, or of compensation for loss of career, interruption of service or disturbance made in connection with any change in the constitution of any such overseas territory to persons who, before the change, were employed in the public services of that territory;

and references in paragraph (f) of this subsection to an overseas territory, to the government of such a territory and to employment in the public services of such a territory shall be construed as if they occurred in the Overseas Service Act, 1958, and subsections (2) and (3) of section seven of that Act (which relate to the construction of such references) shall apply accordingly.

(2) Tax shall not be charged by virtue of the last foregoing section in respect of a payment in the case of which any of the following conditions is satisfied, that is to say—

(a) in any case, that on the relevant date the holder of the office or employment was domiciled elsewhere than in the United Kingdom, and that immediately before that date he held the office or employment under or with any person, body of persons or partnership then resident outside, and not resident in, the United Kingdom; or

(b) in the case of a payment of compensation for loss of office—

(i) that the holder of the office or employment held it under a contract which did not require him to perform any of the duties of the office or employment in the United Kingdom; or

(ii) there being no express requirement in the contract as to the place of performance of those duties, that he did not perform any of them in the United Kingdom during the three years immediately preceding the relevant date; or

(c) in the case of a payment in respect of an office or employment in which the holder's service included foreign service, not being a payment of compensation for loss of office, that the foreign service comprised either—

(i) in any case, three-quarters of the whole period of service down to the relevant date; or

(ii) where the period of service down to the relevant date exceeded ten years, the whole of the last ten years; or

(iii) where the period of service down to the relevant date exceeded twenty years, one-half of that period, including any ten of the last twenty years;

and where an office or employment was in substance one the duties of which fell in any year to be performed outside the United Kingdom, there shall be treated for the purposes of paragraph (b) of this subsection as so performed any duties performed in the United Kingdom the performance of which was merely incidental to the performance of the other duties outside the United Kingdom.

(3) Tax shall not be charged by virtue of the last foregoing section in respect of a payment of an amount not exceeding five thousand pounds, and in the case of a payment which exceeds that amount shall be charged only in respect of the excess:

Provided that where two or more payments in respect of which tax is chargeable by virtue of that section, or would be so chargeable apart from the foregoing provisions of this subsection, are made to or in respect of the same person in respect of the same office or employment, or in respect of different offices or employments held under the same employer or under associated employers, this subsection shall apply as if those payments were a single payment of an amount equal to that aggregate amount; and the amount of any one payment chargeable to tax shall be ascertained as follows, that is to say—

(a) where the payments are treated as income of different years of assessment, the said sum of five thousand pounds shall be deducted from a payment treated as income of an earlier year before any payment treated as income of a later year; and

(b) subject as aforesaid, the said sum shall be deducted rateably from the payments according to their respective amounts.

(4) The person chargeable to tax by virtue of the last foregoing section in respect of any payment may, before the expiration of six years after the end of the year of assessment of which it is treated as income, by notice in writing to the surveyor claim any such relief in respect of the payment as is applicable thereto under the Fourth Schedule to this Act; and where such a claim is duly made and allowed, all such repayments and assessments of tax shall be made as are necessary to give effect thereto.

(5) For the purposes of this section and of the Fourth Schedule to this Act offices or employments in respect of which payments to which the last foregoing section applies are made shall be treated as held under associated employers if, on the date which is the relevant date in relation to any of those payments, one of those employers is under the control of the other or of a third person who controls or is under the control of the other on that or any other such date.

(6) In this section " the relevant date ", " payment of compensation for loss of office " and " foreign service " have the same meaning as in the Fourth Schedule to this Act, and references to an employer or to a person controlling or controlled by an employer include references to his successors.

(7) Any dispute as to the domicile of any person arising under this section shall be referred and determined as provided by subsection (3) of section ten of the Finance Act, 1956, in the case of disputes as to domicile under paragraph 1 of Schedule E, and the provisions of that subsection shall apply with the necessary modifications accordingly.

(8) For the purposes of any provision of the Act of 1952 or of this Act requiring income of any description to be treated as the highest part of a person's income, that income shall be calculated without regard to any payment chargeable to tax by virtue of the last foregoing section.