Finance Act 2009

Employment income

53 Taxable benefits: cars

Schedule 28 contains provision about taxable benefits arising from cars made available to employees etc by reason of employment.

54 Taxable benefit of cars: price of automatic car for disabled employee

(1) Chapter 6 of Part 3 of ITEPA 2003 (taxable benefits: cars etc) is amended as follows.

(2) In section 116(3) (meaning of when car is available), after “to section” insert “124A or”.

(3) In section 121(1) (method of calculating cash equivalent of benefit of car), in step 1, for “124” substitute “124A”.

(4) In section 122 (price of car), the existing provision becomes subsection (1) of that section and after that subsection insert—

“(2) This is subject to section 124A (automatic car for a disabled employee).”

(5) After section 124 insert—

“124A Automatic car for a disabled employee

(1) This section applies where—

(a) a car has automatic transmission (“the automatic car”),

(b) at any time in the year when the automatic car is available to the employee (“E”), E holds a disabled person’s badge, and

(c) by reason of E’s disability, E must, in the event of wanting to drive a car, drive a car which has automatic transmission.

(2) If, under section 122 to 124, the price of the automatic car is more than it would have been if the automatic car had been an equivalent manual car, the price of the automatic car is to be the price of an equivalent manual car.

(3) In subsection (2) “an equivalent manual car” means a car which—

(a) is first registered at or about the same time as the automatic car, and

(b) does not have automatic transmission, but otherwise is the closest variant available of the make and model of the automatic car.

(4) For the purposes of this section a car has automatic transmission if—

(a) the driver of the car is not provided with any means by which the driver may vary the gear ratio between the engine and the road wheels independently of the accelerator and the brakes, or

(b) the driver is provided with such means, but they do not include—

(i) a clutch pedal, or

(ii) a lever which the driver may operate manually.

(5) For the purposes of this section a car is available to an employee at a particular time if it is then made available, by reason of the employment and without any transfer of the property in it, to the employee.”

(6) The amendments made by this section have effect for the tax year 2009-10 and subsequent tax years.

55 Exemption of benefit consisting of health-screening or medical check-up

(1) Part 4 of ITEPA 2003 (employment income: exemptions) is amended as follows.

(2) In section 266(3) (exemption of non-cash vouchers for exempt benefits), omit the “or” at the end of paragraph (e) and insert at the end “or

(g) section 320B (health screening and medical check-ups).”

(3) In section 267(2) (exemption of credit-tokens used for exempt benefits), omit the “and” at the end of paragraph (g) and insert at the end “and

(i) section 320B (health screening and medical check-ups).”

(4) After section 320A insert—

“Health-screening and medical check-ups

320B Health-screening and medical check-ups

(1) No liability to income tax arises in respect of the provision for an employee, on behalf of an employer, of a health-screening assessment or a medical check-up.

(2) Subsection (1) does not apply—

(a) to more than one health-screening assessment provided in a tax year by any one employer or by any of a number of persons who are employers of the employee at the same time, or

(b) to more than one medical check-up so provided.

(3) In this section—

• “health-screening assessment” means an assessment to identify employees who might be at particular risk of ill-health, and

• “medical check-up” means a physical examination of the employee by a health professional for (and only for) determining the employee’s state of health.”

(5) The amendments made by this section have effect for the tax year 2009-10 and subsequent tax years.

56 MEPs' pay, allowances and pensions under European Parliament Statute

(1) Part 18 of ICTA (double tax relief) has effect as if tax for the benefit of the Communities payable in respect of any income under—

(a) Articles 9.1 and 10 (salaries),

(b) Article 13 (transitional allowances), or

(c) Article 14, 15 or 17 (pensions for old-age, incapacity and survivors),

of the Statute for Members of the European Parliament (2005/684/EC, Euratom) were payable under the law of a territory outside the United Kingdom.

(2) In section 291(2)(c) of ITEPA 2003 (termination payments under section 3 of European Parliament (Pay and Pensions) Act 1979), insert at the end “or under Article 13 of the Statute for Members of the European Parliament (transitional allowances),”.

(3) This section has effect for the tax year 2009-10 and subsequent tax years.