Income Tax Act 2007

168 Directors excluded from connection

(1) An individual is not connected with the issuing company under section 167 merely because the individual, or an associate of the individual, is a director of that or another company unless the individual or associate (or a partnership of which the individual or associate is a member)—

(a) receives a payment from the issuing company or a related person during the period mentioned in section 163, or

(b) is entitled to receive such a payment in respect of that period or any part of it.

(2) For the purposes of subsection (1) the following are ignored—

(a) any payment or reimbursement of travelling or other expenses wholly, exclusively and necessarily incurred by the individual or an associate of the individual in the performance of the individual’s or associate’s duties as a director,

(b) any interest which represents no more than a reasonable commercial return on money lent to the issuing company or a related person,

(c) any dividend or other distribution which does not exceed a normal return on the investment,

(d) any payment for the supply of goods which does not exceed their market value,

(e) any payment of rent for any property occupied by the issuing company or a related person which does not exceed a reasonable and commercial rent for the property, and

(f) any necessary and reasonable remuneration which meets the conditions in subsection (3).

(3) The conditions are that the remuneration—

(a) is paid for services rendered to the issuing company or related person in the course of a trade or profession carried on wholly or partly in the United Kingdom (not being secretarial or managerial services or services of a kind provided by the person to whom they are rendered), and

(b) is taken into account in calculating for tax purposes the profits of that trade or profession.

(4) In this section—

(a) “related person”, in relation to the issuing company, means—

(i) any company of which the individual or an associate of the individual is a director and which is a subsidiary or partner of the issuing company, or a partner of a subsidiary of the issuing company, and

(ii) any person connected with the issuing company or with a company falling within sub-paragraph (i), and

(b) any reference to a payment to an individual includes a payment made to the individual indirectly or to the individual’s order or for the individual’s benefit.

(5) In this section and section 169 “subsidiary”, in relation to the issuing company, means a company which at any time in period A is a 51% subsidiary of the issuing company.