First published in The Bermuda Chamber Of Commerce Newsletter
(Chamber Insider) July 2019.
Payroll tax is levied against every employer, employee,
self-employed person and deemed employee. While this may appear to
be straightforward, care should be taken to distinguish whether or
not payroll tax is applicable even when in the ordinary course a
relationship may not appear to be within the scope of these
categories as failure to do so may result in a maximum penalty of
30% of the outstanding tax liability. In this feature, the focus is
on payroll tax and directors as it is quite common for
directors' payroll tax status to be incorrectly determined.
Section 5 of the Payroll Tax Act 1995 (Act)
provides, in its pertinent parts, (a) an individual who is a
director, officer or member of the governing body of a body
corporate (i.e. registered company) is an employee of that body
corporate for the purposes of the Act; (b) an individual who is a
director, officer or member
