§ Mr. Dalyellasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement amplifying the announcement made on 24th June by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury to the effect that he proposed to authorise the Inland Revenue to extend its present practice of not seeking to tax reimbursements of travelling expenses incurred by directors and employees in certain circumstances.
§ Mr. Joel BarnettYes. The further concession will be that where the employer reimburses the employee the expenses incurred by the latter in travelling—whether alone or with his wife and family—to the place of employment overseas and returning to the United Kingdom the Inland Revenue will not seek to tax the reimbursement as income in the hands of the employee. This concession will extend also to directorships.
This further concession is required because there are—in the context of the Government's proposals for the taxation of foreign incomes—two categories of person who are outside the scope of the 97W Board of Inland Revenue's existing concessions relating to the taxation of travelling expenses, published as A5 (Directors' travelling expenses) and A6 (Expenses allowances and benefits in kind). First, there is the person who takes up a new employment abroad lasting less than a year and, as will usually be the case, retains his place of abode in the United Kingdom. Second, there is the person with a continuing United Kingdom job and one or more overseas directorships or employments which are not within the same group as the company he works for in the United Kingdom. Both of these categories would come within the scope of the further concession referred to above.