{"id":626,"date":"2018-12-18T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-12-18T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/taxbak.co.uk\/index.php\/2018\/12\/18\/merry-christmas\/"},"modified":"2018-12-18T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2018-12-18T00:00:00","slug":"merry-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/taxbak.co.uk\/index.php\/2018\/12\/18\/merry-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"Merry Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From a business perspective there is not much to be merry about this year especially if you need some clarity regarding our impending exit from the EU.<\/p>\n<p>Never-the-less, business owners would be wise to consider the tax-free gifts that can be made to ease the financial needs for extra funds over the festive season.<\/p>\n<p>In particular, make the most of the trivial benefits allowance. Here&rsquo;s what is available and how you can benefit:<\/p>\n<p>You don&rsquo;t have to pay tax on a benefit for your employee (including working directors &ndash; but see note below) if all of the following apply:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>it cost you &pound;50 or less to provide<\/li>\n<li>it isn&rsquo;t cash or a cash voucher<\/li>\n<li>it isn&rsquo;t a reward for their work or performance<\/li>\n<li>it isn&rsquo;t in the terms of their contract<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This is known as a &lsquo;trivial benefit&rsquo;. You don&rsquo;t need to pay tax or National Insurance or let HMRC know.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Be careful as:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>you may have to pay tax on any benefits that don&rsquo;t meet all these criteria, and<\/li>\n<li>if you provide these benefits as part of a formal salary sacrifice arrangements, they won&rsquo;t be exempt.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Special rules for directors of &lsquo;close&rsquo; companies<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As you might expect, HMRC are not keen for owner\/directors of small companies to benefit unduly from these tax-free benefits. Accordingly, you can&rsquo;t receive trivial benefits worth more than &pound;300 in a tax year if you are the director of a &lsquo;close&rsquo; company.<\/p>\n<p>A close company is a limited company that&rsquo;s run by 5 or fewer shareholders.<\/p>\n<!-- -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From a business perspective there is not much to be merry about this year especially if you need some clarity regarding our impending exit from the EU. Never-the-less, business owners would be wise to consider the tax-free gifts that can be made to ease the financial needs for extra funds over the festive season. In [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","blog-left-layout","blog-style-postblock","","blog-alt-odd"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/taxbak.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/taxbak.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/taxbak.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/taxbak.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/taxbak.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/taxbak.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/taxbak.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/taxbak.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}