Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003 section 290C

Provisions of benefits code not applicable to lower-paid ministers of religion

Section 290C exempts lower-paid ministers of religion from income tax on certain employment benefits, including expenses payments, company cars and vans, beneficial loans, and residual taxable benefits.

• Ministers of religion in lower-paid employment are exempt from income tax on specific categories of employment benefits for the relevant tax year.
• The exempt benefit categories are: expenses payments (Chapter 3), cars, vans and related benefits such as fuel (Chapter 6), loans (Chapter 7), and any other residual benefits (Chapter 10).
• These exemptions only apply within the context of those specific benefit chapters and do not alter the meaning of "employee" elsewhere in the legislation.
• The exemptions are overridden in two situations: where a loan is released or written off when employment becomes lower-paid (section 188), and where the minister holds two or more related employments that together take them above the lower-paid threshold (section 290G).