The schedular system of taxation is the system of how the charge to United Kingdom corporation tax is applied. It also applied to United Kingdom income tax before legislation was rewritten by the Tax Law Rewrite Project. Similar systems apply in other jurisdictions that are or were closely related to the United Kingdom, such as Ireland and Jersey.

The levies to tax on income were originally set out in Schedules to the Income Tax Act. In the case of United Kingdom corporation tax, they remain for companies charged to that tax, and in the case of United Kingdom income tax, many, but not all remain.

In the United Kingdom the source rule applies. This means that something is taxed only if there is a specific provision bringing it within the charge to tax. Accordingly, profits are only charged to corporation tax if they fall within one of the following, and are not otherwise exempted by an explicit provision of the Taxes Acts:

The Schedules

{| class="wikitable"

!

! Scope

|-

||Schedule A||Income from UK land

|-

||Schedule D||Taxable income not falling within another Schedule

|-

||Schedule F||Income from UK dividends

|-

||Chargeable gains||Gains as defined by legislation that are not taxed as income

|-

||CFC charge||Profits made by controlled foreign companies where no exemption applies

|}

Notes:

  1. The heads of charge listed above are mutually exclusive. No income or gain can fall within more than one head of charge.
  2. In practice companies do not get taxed under Schedule F. Most companies are exempted from Schedule F and there is a provision for those companies which are taxed on UK dividends (i.e. dealers in shares (stock)) that removes the charge from Schedule F to Schedule D.
  3. A controlled foreign company ("CFC") is a company controlled by a UK resident that is not itself UK resident and is subject to a lower rate of tax in the territory in which it is resident. Under certain circumstances, UK resident companies that control a CFC pay corporation tax on what the UK tax profits of that CFC would have been. However, because of a wide range of exemptions, very few companies suffer a CFC charge.
  4. There used to be a Schedule B and a Schedule C that applied to companies, but these have now been merged with Schedule D. Schedule E, which was repealed in 2003, only applied to individuals.
  5. Authorised unit trusts are not liable to tax on their chargeable gains.

History

Income tax was levied under 5 schedules - income not falling within those schedules was not taxed. The schedules were:

  • Schedule A (tax on income from UK land)
  • Schedule B (tax on commercial occupation of land)
  • Schedule C (tax on income from public securities)
  • Schedule D (tax on trading income, income from professions and vocations, interest, overseas income and casual income)
  • Schedule E (tax on employment income)