| Employment Income: Deductions and Expenses |
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The dissentient, Lord Browne—Wilkinson, concluded that the court had no power to overrule the findings of the Commissioners.95 His points were dissected by Lord Templeman in a manner which was fraternal only in the sense that the best rows are within the family.96 |
18A.3.2 Necessarily |
The cases often fail to distinguish the requirement that the expense be incurred in the performance of the duties of the office from the requirement that it be necessarily so incurred. It is, however, clear from the cases on travel expenses that the test of necessity is objective.97 Hence an employee with defective eyesight cannot recover the cost of his glasses.98 |
The fact that the employer requires the particular expenditure is not decisive.99 As Donovan LJ put it, ‘The test is not whether the employer imposes the expense but whether the duties do, in the sense that irrespective of what the employer may prescribe, the duties cannot be performed without incurring the particular outlay’.100 Therefore, a student assistant in the research laboratories of a company, who was required to attend classes in preparation for |