Second Division Inner House) The AG appealed from a finding that a tax avoidance was not a sham. TH AG brought a new argument, that the payment of the sums to the remuneration trust involved a redirection of the employee’s earnings and accordingly did not exclude those earnings from the charge to income tax.
Held: The argument succeeded. The appeal was allowed. The central concept in the tax regime governing employment income is the payment of emoluments or earnings derived from employment; and an employer who pays emoluments or earnings to or on account of an employee is obliged to deduct tax in accordance with the PAYE Regulations.
Income, which is derived from an employee’s work qua employee, is an emolument or earnings, and that it is assessable to income tax, even if the employee requests or agrees that it be redirected to a third party. The Inner House held that the scheme, which involved payments into the Principal Trust and the application of the funds through the sub-trusts, amounted to a redirection of the employee’s earnings and did not remove the employer’s liability to pay income tax under the PAYE system. It held that the redirection occurred when the employing company paid the sums to the Principal Trust; the fact that the employee took the risk that the trustee would not apply the funds as he requested was irrelevant. The payments by the employing company into the Principal Trust were derived from the employee’s work as an employee and so were emoluments or earnings.
Judges:
Lord Drummond Young
Citations:
[2015] ScotCS CSIH – 77, 2016 SCLR 485, [2016] STC 468, [2015] BTC 36, 2016 SC 201, 2015 GWD 36-583
Links:
Statutes:
Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1988
Jurisdiction:
Scotland
Citing:
At FTTTx – Murray Group Holdings and Others v Revenue and Customs FTTTx 29-Oct-2012
FTTTx Income Tax and NIC – Schedule E – emoluments/earnings – tax avoidance scheme – Remuneration Trust – employees’ individual sub-trusts – ‘protectors’ – (1) whether payments by employer into trust represent . .
Appeal From – Revenue and Customs v Murray Group Holdings Ltd and Others UTTC 8-Jul-2014
UTTC Income Tax and NIC – emoluments/earnings – tax avoidance scheme – remuneration trust – employees’ individual sub-trusts – ‘protectors’ – (1) whether payments into sub-trusts were emoluments/earnings subject . .
Cited by:
Appeal from – RFC 2012 Plc (Formerly The Rangers Football Club Plc) v Advocate General for Scotland SC 5-Jul-2017
The Court was asked whether an employee’s remuneration is taxable as his or her emoluments or earnings when it is paid to a third party in circumstances in which the employee had no prior entitlement to receive it himself or herself.
Held: The . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Scotland
Updated: 18 August 2022; Ref: scu.558138
