Finance Act 1977

Long absences

1 (1) Where in any year of assessment—

(a) the duties of an employment are performed wholly or partly outside the United Kingdom; and

(b) any of those duties are performed in the course of a qualifying period which falls wholly or partly in that year and consists of at least 365 days,

then, in charging tax under Case I of Schedule E on the amount of the emoluments from that employment attributable to that period, or to so much of it as falls in that year of assessment, there shall be allowed a deduction equal to the whole of that amount.

(2) For the purposes of this paragraph a qualifying period is a period of consecutive days which either—

(a) consists entirely of days of absence from the United Kingdom; or

(b) consists partly of such days and partly of days included by virtue of sub-paragraph (3) below.

(3) Where, in the case of any person, a period consisting entirely of days of absence from the United Kingdom (" the relevant period ") comes to an end and there have previously been one or more qualifying periods, the relevant period and the (or, if more than one, the last) qualifying period together with the intervening days between those periods shall be treated as a single qualifying period provided that—

(a) there are no more than 62 intervening days ; and

(b) the number of days in the resulting period which are not days of absence from the United Kingdom does not exceed one-sixth of the total number of days in that period.

(4) For the purposes of sub-paragraph (1) above the emoluments from an employment attributable to a qualifying period include any emoluments from that employment for a period of leave immediately following that period but not so as to make any emoluments for one year of assessment emoluments for another.

(5) In relation to the year 1977-78 references in sub-paragraphs (1) and (4) above to a qualifying period include references to any period beginning before and ending after the commencement of that year which—

(a) is a continuous period of absence from the United Kingdom as defined in paragraph 2 of Schedule 2 to the [1974 c. 30.] Finance Act 1974 ; and

(b) so far as it falls after the commencement of that year, is (or is part of) a qualifying period as defined in sub-paragraph (2) above.