Hopefully, this year staff Christmas parties can go ahead and thoughts turn once again to gifts for staff.

Whether you are a partner in a GP practice, a consultant with a limited company, or practicing as sole practitioner or indeed as a partnership, so long as you have employees, which may include yourself, say, a director of a limited company or family member, then carrying on reading what benefits are available.

Social Functions & Parties

The Revenue allow social functions and parties that cost £150 or less per person. The cost is tax deductible for you as the employer and not taxable on your staff.

To be eligible it must be available to all staff and be an annual event like Christmas or summer barbecue.

It need not all be spent at once and can be spread to other functions and if for some reason Covid hits Christmas again it can apply to online or virtual parties.

More details can be found here.

Trivial Benefits

In addition to the above, a tax deduction is allowed for gifts given to your staff, provided they cost £50 or less to provide, are not a reward for their work performance and are not included in any contract. These gifts are not taxable upon your staff. Gifts could include non-cash vouchers that can be used for a turkey or a Christmas hamper and even alcohol. Normally, the Revenue restrict tax relief on alcoholic products for businesses.

Major online platforms provide gift vouchers.

Multiple vouchers can be given to an employee in a year with the only restriction being directors of ‘close’ companies being limited to £300 in any year.

A ‘close’ company would include the majority of practitioners with limited companies.

More details can be found here.

The partners, associates and all staff at Sandison Easson & Co hope that the above will bring some festive cheer and should you have any questions please feel free to get in touch.

If there is one thing that benefitted from the COVID 19 lockdown it was the environment.

Less cars and other modes of transport made an appreciable impact.

Before lockdown the government had introduced incentives particularly relating to electric cars.

Some of these incentives differed in different parts of the UK, particularly in Scotland where more incentives are available and detailed below.

Electric Cars – 100% Allowances

The government in its drive for a greener environment provided what was known as enhanced capital allowances for electric cars. Cars whereby the CO2 emission is 50g/km or less.

These cars are entitled to 100% writing down allowance in the first year as opposed to 18% each year for non-compliant vehicles.

More...

An employer can provide Trivial Benefits to their employees and directors without incurring a tax charge. This means as an employer you can provide your staff, or your limited company can provide its staff and or directors with gifts of up to £50 each without a tax liability arising. Multiple £50 gifts can be given during the tax year.

If the benefit is provided to a director or other office holder of a family run company, the exemption is capped at £300 in the tax year. So in essence, HMRC allow tax relief on six £50 gifts each tax year.

From HMRCs perspective, a benefit is exempt from tax if all of the following conditions are satisfied:

• The cost of providing the benefit does not exceed £50
• The benefit is not cash or convertible into cash. Gift cards are OK as long as they are not exchangeable for cash
• The employee or director is not entitled to the benefit as part of any contractual obligation
• The benefit is not provided in recognition of particular services performed by the employee as part of their employment duties