(145
LAND
REVE
ENUE
Inland Revenue
Personal Tax Division (Schedule E)
NC G Whitney Esq
Foreign & Commonwealth Office
Hong Kong Department
LONDON
SW1A 2AH
MA
Br 1855
Sapphire House
550 Streetsbrook Road Solihull
B91 1QU
Telephone 021 711 3232
Your reference
Our reference
HKA 233/1
TRY
Date
177AY 1993
Audion Tus
SAP128/PMB/555
O May 1993
Dear Mr Whitney
HONG KONG HMOCS OFFICERS: COMPENSATION PAYMENTS
Thank you for your letter of 15 April.-@
I can fully understand your wish to ensure that the tax treatment of HMOCS officers serving in Hong Kong is the same as that which applied to colleagues who retired from Colonial Service elsewhere. You will however appreciate that such parity of treatment cannot result from the application of tax law as it now stands, particularly in view of legislative changes taking place in Finance Act 1989. Hence, if parity is to be achieved it would indeed be necessary to make some special legislative provision dealing with the lump sum compensation payments to retiring Hong Kong HMOCS officers.
When Alan McDonald and I discussed the question of special legislation, I did explain to him that there were some precedents for special treatment under the Taxes Acts quoting Section 190 (payments to members of Parliament) as an example. I mention to him that I was uncertain as to whether the tax treatment of the payments could be legislated in the statute dealing with the Hong Kong compensation scheme itself, or whether such a provision would have to be embodied in the Taxes Acts. I promised, on request, to query this particular aspect of the matter with the Inland Revenue Solicitors. Following your letter, I have done this, and I am advised that an amendment to the Taxes Acts itself would be required, by way of inclusion in the annual Finance Act, to achieve what you have in mind. So it would not be sufficient simply to include in the Hong Kong Pensions Act the provision dealing with taxation of the payments provided thereunder.
So far as the actual form of legislation is concerned, that is outside my remit and is obviously a matter for Parliamentary Counsel. All I will say is that, in my experience, it is
сел делью
ODA (Ffort
вр 1215
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