Commentary on Sections Part 7: Income charged under this Act: rent-a-room and foster-care relief Overview Section 818: Election for alternative method of calculating profits
3030.This section provides for a foster carer to elect for the alternative form of the relief. It is based on paragraph 14 of Schedule 36 to FA 2003.
3031.This section also provides explicitly for a procedure to withdraw an election within the stated time limit. The absence of such a procedure in the source legislation for foster-care relief is in contrast to the source legislation for rent-a-room on which the former is otherwise closely modelled. It was not considered necessary in the source foster-care relief legislation because, unlike the rent-a-room relief election, a foster-care relief election is made only for one year. It was implicit in the year by year approach that the foster-care election could be withdrawn within the Self Assessment time limits by, for example, an amendment to a return. This Part puts these similar reliefs side by side and a contrast in approach might wrongly suggest a different intended legal effect. To make the position clear this section provides explicitly for the withdrawal of an election.
3032.Subsection (2) makes it clear that the election applies only to the year for which it is made.
3033.Subsection (3) converts references, in the source legislation, to the Board of Inland Revenue into references to the Inland Revenue. See Change 149 in Annex 1.