There is a precautionary note that a ‘legitimate expectation’ may be in place where there is no explicit contractual obligation. The example used is that of a company that provides its staff with a cream cake every Friday. Even though this benefit isn’t confirmed in a contract of employment, it has become a legitimate expectation and staff will expect to receive their cream cake on a weekly basis.
Benefit should not exceed £50
There is also advice around the treatment of a benefit when it is offered via the platform of an app which gives the employee access to products at a discounted rate or to services which the employee is then responsible for paying for themselves. The benefit that the employer is offering is access to that app and not to the services it offers, e.g. hailing a taxi. If the cost of providing the app exceeds £50 then this cannot be classed as a Trivial Benefit. If , on the other hand, the company is paying for services provided to a staff member, so if they pay for medical advice at £49 per session, for example, once the employee has more than one session of medical advice, the benefit will cease to be classed as a Trivial Benefit as the total is above the £50 threshold. To revisit the example of using an app for hailing a taxi, if a business provides an employee with access to an app and also pays for any personal trips (exclusive of any taken for business purposes) then the cost of the trips combined with the cost of providing the app would need to be used to establish whether the benefit can be classed as trivial or not. Recognition of services The final pointer given addresses the issue of providing rewards for services. If a benefit is provided in recognition of something that an employee is contractually obliged to do, this would not satisfy the Trivial Benefit rules. The scenario provided is where an employer rewards staff by buying them lunch to ensure that they work through their lunch break. As they are undertaking work that they would ordinarily do as part of their contract and receiving a benefit for it, this would not be classed as a Trivial Benefit.
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Approved professional organisations and learned societies (list 3) 3 January 2020
HMRC has updated the list of professional bodies and learned societies (also known as List 3) with tax-deductible fees.
For some professional organisations, members can claim tax relief on fees or subscriptions.
List 3 shows all organisations whose members qualify for a tax deduction on professional fees and subscriptions pertaining to that organisation.
The list is updated periodically and includes all bodies approved by the commissioners for HMRC.
HMRC has confirmed that there has been one deletion, and that the Energy Institute has been removed from List 3.
Professional organisations can apply for approval for tax relief using form P356.
CIPP comment
The CIPP appears on list three, which means that any self-funding members can claim tax relief on their membership fees. The CIPP is listed under ‘P’ under the title ‘Payroll Professionals Chartered Institute of (new title from 10 November 2010 formerly Institute of Payroll Professionals)’.
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The CIPP’s payrolling of benefits factsheet is available
The Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals
Payroll: need to know
cipp.org.uk
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