We may look at the whole question of tax payable on benefits at some point in a future newsletter.
However, there is one interesting change to the taxation of benefits in the current Finance Bill, which exempts trivial benefits from tax and national insurance.
A trivial benefit is defined in the Bill as one that costs £50 or less to provide. If the benefit is provided to more than one employee, and the cost per employee is impractical to calculate, then the average cost can be used instead. Therefore, if an employer has 10 staff who are all taken out to a function the total cost of which to the employer, including travel, tickets, food and drink, is £500 or less in total then that benefit qualifies as a trivial benefit an does not need to be reported to HMRC and no tax or NIC is payable.
This is one piece of tax simplification that may actually help HMRC’s “customers”.