Repatriation upon death of an employee

[JPB2017]

An employee of a group company sadly passed away overseas. I am currently clarifying if the employee was there on business or vacation. The company has met the cost of repatriating the employee body back to the UK so that the family didn't need to.

If on business trip I presume, perhaps wrongly, that the cost would be allowable business expense and no personal tax implications. I'm informed that the travel insurance did not cover this. With this not being covered by travel insurance my first thought was that it may have been an inadequate insurance policy for a personal holiday so here is my second part of the unusual query. If it was a holiday and repatriated and the company paid for it as a goodwill gesture are there tax implications on the deceased (or their estate), are there any provisions to mitigate. Obviously the company doesn't want the employee to be taxed for a benefit of meeting the costs if it was a personal trip and if no mitigation is this something a company could put on a PSA?

Thank you in advance

JB

[AmanSood]

As the payment is clearly being made on the death of the employee, this benefit would not be taxable on the employee/estate and main provision which would mitigate the tax charge is at s406 ITEPA 2003.