Taxation of Termination Payments

Termination payments consist of various individual payments made to employees or workers by employers when the contract of employment ends. When this happens, the parties should ascertain the individual payments to which the employee or worker is entitled and then ascertain the amount of tax payable on each of these payments which make up the total termination payment. Many employees or workers and their employers fail to do this. This can lead to appeals to the Tax Tribunals by former employees and workers against the unexpected assessment of tax by HMRC on these payments. It can also lead to appeals being made to the Employment Appeal Tribunal or to higher courts to ask it or them to adjudicate on whether an award of compensation made by an employment tribunal is taxable and, if it is, whether or not it should be paid net of tax or grossed up to allow for tax. Most of these appeals are often unnecessary because there is now a body of tax and employment law which provides answers to these questions.