Newsletter Spring 2006

Spring 2006 Newsletter

Content

U-Turns Galore

Premises, Promises

Filing Bonus

RIP: 0% Rate

His and Hers

Party Spirit

State Of The Union

VAT's The Point?

Going Dutch

Away Win For Revenue

WIP-Round

The Best Land Plans

Tax Free Gizmos

Where Theres A Will

Do You Work Here?

Out Of The Shadows

Sacrifice Works

Home Sweet Office

Sauce For The Goose

Blissful Ignorance

PC Or Not PC?

Lost On Penalties

Worth The Paper

Carry The Can

Tax Free Gizmos

Some tax rules seem to be surprisingly generous. Still, the Chancellor - whichever one introduced them - must have wanted people to do a particular thing, so he put a tax incentive on it. Doing it is just being a good citizen (until the next Chancellor says it's a shocking loophole and says you have to stop!).

The rules for company computers and company mobile phones are apparently - if you need a reason - to encourage the British to be up-to-the-minute members of the digital economy. If your employer provides you with a mobile phone, you don't pay any income tax on the bills your employer pays. If your employer lends you a computer to have at home, you don't pay any income tax on the benefit of it, even if you use it for games or internet shopping.

There doesn't seem to be any limit on the mobile phone exemption, so an employer can give you several phones, and you can let the family use them. The employer might object to the bills, but in a private company, the employer might be paying the teenage children's phone bills anyway - out of taxed income rather than before tax.

There is a limit on the computer exemption - the private use benefit, based on 20% of the value of the computer, should not be more than £500 a year. That means that you can borrow £2,500 of computer equipment with no business use at all and not pay any tax on it. That's certainly going to be cheaper than buying it yourself out of your taxed salary.

There are some issues about the employer deducting the costs of these expenses in working out its own tax, but if these ideas sound interesting, get in touch (by mobile phone or e-mail?).