ра
HAA
23311
29 July 1993
Peter Bowen Esq
Inland Revenue
Personal Tax Division Schedule E
Sapphire House
550 Streetsbrook Road
Solihull
B91 1QU
Foreign & Commonwealth
Office
226)
London SWIA 2AH
Telephone: 071- 2702652
ниа 2331
2 AUG 1993
Dear Feren
145
HONG KONG HMOCS OFFICERS: COMPENSATION PAYMENTS
Thank you for your last letter of 10 May.
We have consulted the Treasury on your advice that an amendment to the Taxes Act, by way of inclusion in the annual Finance Act would be required to ensure that compensation payments for Hong Kong HMOCS officers are exempt from UK taxation. You should by now have received a copy of the letter of 28 July from Kevin Woodfield at the Treasury which sets out their views on this matter.
As you will have seen, Mr Woodfield consulted his colleagues dealing with taxation in the Treasury and has advised that Ministers would need to be invited by the Revenue to consider the case for exempting Hong Kong HMOCS from tax before proceeding any further. Although no final decision has yet been made on the technical details of the compensation scheme for HMOCS officers, agreement in principle has been reached on the broad outline of a scheme and we would like to ensure that the question of taxation of compensation payments is clarified before we enter negotiations with the HMOCS Association in Hong Kong. I would, therefore, be grateful if you could put the case to Ministers to see whether they would be prepared to accept the principle of exemption before we go any further.
I note that Mr Woodfield thinks that it is unlikely that, even if Ministers were to decide to legislate in this case, that they would be willing to include anything in the 1994 Finance Bill unless there were an overwhelming reason to do so. Does this mean that the earliest we could hope to bring about an amendment to the Taxes Act would be through the 1995
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