The Income Tax (Pay As You Earn) Regulations 2003

Trade disputes

64.—(1) This regulation applies if an employee—

(a) is absent from work because of a trade dispute at the employee’s place of work, and

(b) is participating or directly interested in the trade dispute.

(2) The employer must—

(a) on making any relevant payment, calculate the amount of tax to be deducted or repaid, and

(b) comply with paragraphs (5) to (8).

(3) If no relevant payments are to be made on the normal pay day but the employee’s code would be used on the cumulative basis if a relevant payment were made on that day, the employer must—

(a) calculate, in accordance with regulation 23 (cumulative basis: deduction and repayment) whether any tax is due to be repaid on that day as if it were a day on which relevant payments of nil had been paid, and

(b) comply with paragraphs (5) to (8).

(4) Paragraphs (2) and (3) are subject to paragraphs (9) and (10).

(5) The employer—

(a) must not repay any tax due to be repaid until the end of the employee’s strike action, but

(b) must deduct any tax due to be deducted, less any repayment for the tax year which has not been made.

(6) The amount of any repayment—

(a) made at the end of the employee’s strike action under paragraph (5)(a), or

(b) set against tax due to be deducted under paragraph (5)(b),

must be reduced by any amount previously set off in accordance with paragraph (5)(b).

(7) If the absence of an employee extends beyond the end of the tax year, the employer must—

(a) before 1st June following the end of the tax year, give notice to the employee of the amount of any repayment of tax for the tax year in question calculated in accordance with paragraph (2) which has not been set off against any tax due to be deducted under paragraph (5)(b); and

(b) complete the certificate which must be given under regulation 67 (Form P60) and the return which must be sent under regulation 73 (Form P35 and P14) as if that tax had been repaid to the employee.

(8) If the employer has not made any repayment of tax withheld under paragraph (5) within 42 days after the end of the employee’s strike action, the employer must instead immediately pay the tax not repaid to the Inland Revenue, and regulation 69(2) (receipt where requested) applies to that payment.

(9) An employee from whom a repayment of tax has been withheld in accordance with paragraph (5) may request a benefit officer to certify that—

(a) section 14 of the Jobseekers Act 1995(1), or

(b) in Northern Ireland, article 16 of the Jobseekers (Northern Ireland) Order 1995(2),

(no allowance to those involved in trade dispute) does not disqualify the employee from receiving jobseeker’s allowance, whether or not the employee is in fact entitled to receive jobseeker’s allowance.

(10) If a benefit officer certifies in accordance with paragraph (9), the employer must make such repayment to the employee as may be due.

(11) In this regulation—

“benefit officer” means the appropriate officer—

(a)

of the Department for Work and Pensions or,

(b)

in Northern Ireland, of the Department for Social Development;

“end of the employee’s strike action” means any of the following—

(a)

the employee is no longer absent from work because of the trade dispute,

(b)

the employer ceases to employ the employee,

(c)

the employee has become genuinely employed elsewhere in the occupation which the employee usually follows,

(d)

the employee has become regularly engaged in some other occupation, or

(e)

the employee dies;

“jobseeker’s allowance” has the same meaning as in regulation 148;

“place of work” has the meaning given in section 14(4) of the Jobseekers Act 1995 or, in Northern Ireland, in article 16(4) of the Jobseekers (Northern Ireland) Order 1995.

(1)

1995 c. 18.

(2)

S.I. 1995/2705 (N.I. 15).