SE13000 - Termination payments and benefits: Section 148 ICTA 1988: General
Section 148 ICTA 1988
Payments and other benefits are only chargeable under the
special rules in Section 148 ICTA 1988 if they cannot be charged to
Income Tax in any other way.
So the first step when a payment is made to an employee which
appears to fall within the scope of Section 148 ICTA 1988 is to
consider whether it is in fact chargeable under other provisions
(see
SE12810).
In general Section 148 ICTA 1988 charges tax where payments
or benefits are given:
- in connection with termination of employment (for example, retirement, redundancy, dismissal, death , resignation and so on) or
- when the nature of the job or pay is changed or
- when a periodical payment such as a pension payment payable on retirement is converted into a lump sum (“commutation”)
but in all cases
only where no other Section charges the payment or
benefit to Income Tax. So, for example, a payment which compensates
for changes in the employment should first be considered under
SE00680 in order to decide if Section 19
ICTA 1988 applies rather than Section 148 ICTA 1988.
Commutation payments on which tax is payable under Section
148 ICTA 1988 will be rare in practice because of
- the exemption of lump sum retirement benefits from certain schemes (see SE13660) and
- the charge that arises under Section 596A ICTA 1988 in respect of a lump sum paid on, or in anticipation of, retirement ( SE15000)
The full scope of Section 148 ICTA 1988 is set out at
SE13010
Note: Section 148 ICTA 1988 was amended by Section 58 and
Schedule 9 FA 1998 for receipts on or after 6 April 1998. For
details seeSE13040
