Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003 Schedule 7 paragraph 17

Taxable benefits: the benefits code

Paragraph 17 of Schedule 7 explains how key employment-related terms in the benefits code should be interpreted for periods before 6 April 2003, when earlier tax legislation still applied.

• Before 6 April 2003, the terms "employment", "employed", "employee" and "employer" in the benefits code must be read using modified definitions that refer back to the old tax legislation
• For Chapters 3, 6, 7 and 10 of the benefits code (which before 2016-17 did not apply to lower-paid employments), the terms are read as referring to employments within Chapter 2 of Part 5 of ICTA, rather than taxable employments under Part 2 of the 2003 Act
• For all other chapters of the benefits code, the terms are read as referring to employments whose earnings were assessable under the old Schedule E, rather than taxable employments under Part 2 of the 2003 Act
• These interpretive rules are subject to further specific modifications set out in paragraphs 18(2), 24, 27(3), 29(4) and 31(2) of the same Schedule