EIM50200 - Arts Council of Great Britain: tax treatment of awards and bursaries

Awards and bursaries by the Arts Council and similar organisations and foundations to writers, artists, theatrical designers and directors etc may be assessable:

• either as employment income (see EIM00510 onwards)
• or, more usually, as an incident of a subsidiary source of professional income chargeable as Trading Income (see BIM50710 to BIM50715).

The first step in deciding how such an award should be taxed is to establish the employment status of the recipient. Cases of doubt or difficulty should be referred initially to the Nominated Status Officer (see the Employment Status Manual (ESM)).