Is your Salary Sacrifice going to be taxed?

Parking design

Its a busy time for Government Consultations, we have one currently underway called

It runs until 19th October 2016.
Some salary sacarifice items will be protected from any changes:
  • Workplace Childcare
  • Employer Pensions
  • Cycling to work

But everything else is up for grabs for example parking…

Parking

 

Which of your salary sacrifices are at risk?

 

steve@bicknells.net

How you can update HMRC on your company car details

mann im auto

Based on HMRC Statistics approximately 1 million employees have a company car, its the 2nd most popular benefit in kind. The most popular benefit in kind is Private Medical Insurance (2.2m employees).

Often employees will change cars or start/stop having fuel for cars during a tax year and the tax on company cars can be significant, you can use this HMRC calculator to assess the the tax.

http://cccfcalculator.hmrc.gov.uk/CCF0.aspx

HMRC have just introduced a new Check and Update Service for Employees so that you can make sure HMRC have the correct information

https://www.gov.uk/update-company-car-details

You may find that it would be better for your employer to give you a loan, beneficial loans up to £10,000 aren’t a taxable benefit.

https://www.gov.uk/expenses-and-benefits-loans-provided-to-employees/whats-exempt

There companies like Maxxia that promote salary sacrifice schemes for cars

http://maxxia.co.uk/asset-finance/car-salary-sacrifice/

steve@bicknells.net

Why Doctors should use Salary Sacrifice for CPE

Young Doctor with display board

Doctors often agree to pay for their own continuing training personally because of a shortage of NHS funds but when they do pay for courses its unlikely they will be able to claim tax relief.

EIM32530 states that it is well established that employees are not entitled to an expenses deduction under Section 336 ITEPA 2003 for the expenses continuing professional education (CPE). The Commissioners and the Courts have traditionally held that the duties of trainee doctors, for the purpose of the expenses rule, are limited to the clinical work that they do for the NHS Trust by whom they are employed. Their training activities are not undertaken “in the performance of” those duties for the purpose of Section 336 . That is so even though the training activities may be compulsory, and failure to complete them may lead to the employee losing his or her professional qualifications, and/or their job.

The Commissioners and the Courts upheld that view in a number of cases, as follows:

Parikh v Sleeman (63TC75) – a hospital doctor was refused relief for the expenses of attending training courses during periods of study leave.

Snowdon v Charnock (SpC282) – a specialist registrar was refused relief for the expenses of undergoing mandatory personal psychotherapy.

Consultant Psychiatrist v CIR (SpC557) – an NHS consultant was refused relief for the expenses of CPE necessary to maintain her professional qualification.

Decadt v CRC (TL3792) – a specialist registrar was refused relief for the expenses of taking professional examinations, even though it was a condition of his employment that he should do so.

In the recent case of Revenue & Customs Commissioners v Dr Piu Banerjee ([2010] EWCA Civ. 843), the Court of Appeal accepted that a deduction for training costs incurred by an employee should be allowed if the employee was employed on a training contract where training was an intrinsic contractual duty of the employment (see also EIM32535 & EIM32546) and where any personal benefit, unlike most CPE courses, would be incidental and not therefore give rise to a dual purpose of the expenditure.

Salary Sacrifice solves this problem.

Salary sacrifice works particularly well for training because except in the most extreme cases, employees cannot claim a tax deduction for training costs that they pay personally but if the employer pays for training that is work-related:

  • the employer gets the tax deduction
  • the employee is not taxed on the cost and
  • there is no National Insurance to pay.

EIM01210 confirms this.

steve@bicknells.net

Salary Sacrifice has been “clarified”, its time to check that you comply

Staff Benefits

Salary Sacrifice is a very tax efficient way to give your employees benefits and the most popular benefits are Pensions and Childcare. I wrote a blog back in 2011 which explained how it can save 45.8% in tax and NI

HMRC decided on 9th April 2013 that it was time to “clarify”  in their Manuals what are successful and unsuccessful salary sacrifice schemes and have added some further guidance. Their Staff are instructed not to approve schemes (Employment Income Manual EIM42772)….

You (HMRC) may get requests for advice:

  • on how to set up a salary sacrifice arrangement, or
  • on whether draft documentation will achieve a successful salary sacrifice.

You (HMRC) should not comment on either of these areas. Salary sacrifice is a matter of employment law, not tax law. The nature of an employee’s contract of employment is a matter for the employer and employee.

The specific updates are:

EIM42750 – Salary Sacrifice – updated – this contains the examples of schemes

EIM42777 – Contractual arrangements – this has interesting comments on childcare and pensions

  • If the scheme involves childcare or childcare vouchers then the conditions for exemption must be met. (See EIM21905 and EIM16057). Is the agreement to provide childcare between the employee and the childminder or nursery. If so the employer by paying the cost directly is meeting the employee’s personal liability. (See EIM00580).
  • For a registered pension scheme the amount which can be contributed to the scheme is normally linked to the employee’s chargeable earnings. In consequence if the salary sacrifice results in some of the employee’s income no longer being taxable, then the amount of contribution, which can be made to the scheme, will also drop.

EIM42778 – Exemption from Tax/NIC – basically stating that exemption may require that the sacrifice may be available to all employees but that the sacrifice must not reduce the employees wages below National Minimum Wages

The following is an example of an unsuccessful Childcare Salary Sacrifice:

The pay slip for the month ended 31 July 2006 gives monthly pay as £2000 plus overtime of £100, deductions for tax of £355 and NIC. The pay slip for the following month shows monthly pay of £2000 plus overtime of £100, deductions for NIC, childcare vouchers of £200 and tax of £310. The code number operated on the salary has not changed.

The situation is not clear from the payslip. When asked, the employer explains that for August, because childcare vouchers of £55 a week are exempt, £220 of vouchers has been deducted from the gross pay of £2100 and tax charged on the net figure of £1880. Further information is needed, for example a copy of the employment contract and any variations agreed by the employer and employee to that contract.

It is established that in July the employee bought childcare vouchers. The employer was not involved. The employer accepts that as the childcare in July was not provided by him, no tax exemption is available. In August the employee asked the employer to buy the childcare vouchers to take advantage of the exemption. The employer did this and deducted the cost from the monthly salary. The contract of employment shows that the employee is entitled to a base salary of £24000 to be paid monthly. This contract has not been varied. As the employee’s entitlement has remained the same, this is not a successful sacrifice. (See EIM42766).

If you operate salary sacrifice schemes its worth checking that your schemes comply, the tax consequences of failure to comply could be substantial.

steve@bicknells.net

 

Company Car or Car Allowances, which is best, there’s only one way to find out….

Let’s take an example:

VW Golf Blue Motion 1.6 TDI 105PS £18,860 Diesel CO2 99g/km

http://www.volkswagen.co.uk/#/new/golf-vi/which-model/engines/overview/

Using the HMRC calculator http://cccfcalculator.hmrc.gov.uk/CCF0.aspx

Tax Liability indicator:                                     20%                        40%

Company Car Tax (2012/2013)                    £490.20                £980.40

Company Car Fuel Tax (2012/2013)          £488.80                 £977.60

Total                                                                        £979.00                  £1,958.00

If you (the employee) pay for your private fuel you won’t have to pay tax on it.

 

The Employer will need to pay Class 1A National Insurance on the benefit in kind

Car benefit charge (2012/2013)                  £2,451.00

Car fuel benefit charge (2012/2013)         £2,444.00

Total                                                                         £4,895.00

Class 1A 13.8%                                                       £675.51

In addition the employer will have to fund the purchase of the car based on this link the interest will be at 4.5% http://www.volkswagen.co.uk/#/new/golf-vi/which-model/compare/483/ over 36 months that’s a cost of around £3,572.30 in total

Assuming the car is purchased rather than just hired, to offset Depreciation your employer can claim Capital Allowances based on CO2 emissions:

CO2 emissions

Capital allowances treatment of expenditure

Over 160 grams per kilometre (g/km)

Goes into the special rate pool and qualifies for writing-down allowances at the rate for the special rate pool, currently 10 per cent per annum.

 

160g/km or less but more than 110g/km

Goes into the main pool and qualifies for writing-down allowances at the rate for the main pool, currently 20 per cent.

 

110g/km or less (but note that the first-year allowance for cars in this category is due to expire in 2013)

You can claim up to 100 per cent allowance in the accounting period when they were bought, the balance (which may be nil) goes into the main pool in the next year.

http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/detail?itemId=1086394511&type=RESOURCES

So in our case the CO2 emissions are 99 g/km so 100% allowances apply, but subject to a balancing charge on disposal.

So what if your employer offered you a car allowance of £300/mth and business mileage at approved mileage rates http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/rates/travel.htm

If you were a 20% tax payer you would pay tax (20%) and NI (12%) on the extra income so net, your car allowance would be £204/mth x 12 = £2,448

 

Assuming you do 10,000 business miles that’s worth £375/mth x 12 = £4,500 (note that the mileage rate drops to 25p after 10,000 miles)

 

Less the cost of Fuel using HMRC rates http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/cars/advisory_fuel_current.htm

Is 12p per mile so the cost is £100/mth or £1,200 per year

 

So overall from the employees perspective, using this example (ignoring private mileage), Net Allowance £204 plus Mileage £375 less Fuel £100 = £479 per month the cost of the Blue Motion is £320.94 a month per VW Finance (excluding the £1,886 deposit), so the allowance is a good option.

The employers NI at 13.8% on the car allowance is £300 x 13.8% x 12 = £496.80 so that’s cheaper the the Class 1A of £675.51

However, the employer losses the Capital Allowances and the Diesel would be cheaper if the employer purchased it.

Other points to be aware of are:

VAT http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/vat/managing/reclaiming/motoring.htm#6

H&S http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg382.pdf

It is also possible with the right advice to create a salary sacrifice scheme relating to car leasing, advisors such as Dave Hedges at http://www.edge-tax.com are experienced in these schemes.

In conclusion, in my opinion, it all depends on how much the allowance is (Car and Fuel)  and what car the employee needs (size and mileage), the only way to work out the best solution is by running the calculations to find out.

steve@bicknells.net

Salary Sacrifice could save 45.8% in Tax and NI – how does it work?

Most employees pay 20% tax, 12% Ees NI and their employer pays 13.8% NI, so thats a total tax of 45.8% on employment income.

 

There are a range of tax and NI free benefits, for example childcare vouchers, where £55 per week can be paid by the employer, so lets use that as an example, using the calculator

http://listentotaxman.com/index.php

An employee earning £30k a year gets

 Wage Summary  Yearly  Monthly  Week
Gross Pay £30,000.00 £2,500.00 £576.92
Tax free Allowances £7,475.00 £622.92 £143.75
Total taxable £22,525.00 £1,877.08 £433.17
xTax due £4,505.00 £375.42 £86.63
National Insurance £2,732.64 £227.72 £52.55
Total Deductions £7,237.64 £603.14 £139.19
Net Wage £22,762.36 £1,896.86 £437.74
Employers NI £3,164.06 £263.67 £60.85

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Total Tax and NI = £10401.70

If they use Salary Sacrifice for £55 x52 = £2860, new salary would be £27140

 Wage Summary  Yearly  Monthly  Week
Gross Pay £27,140.00 £2,261.67 £521.92
Tax free Allowances £7,475.00 £622.92 £143.75
Total taxable £19,665.00 £1,638.75 £378.17
xTax due £3,933.00 £327.75 £75.63
National Insurance £2,389.44 £199.12 £45.95
Total Deductions £6,322.44 £526.87 £121.59
Net Wage £20,817.56 £1,734.80 £400.34
Employers NI £2,769.38 £230.78 £53.26

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Total Tax and NI = £9091.82

A saving of £1309.98 (45.8% of £2860)

For saves on this scale should you be looking at Salary Sacrifice schemes for your employees,I have seen schemes where it can be applied to a wide variety of things from Pensions to Cars

steve@bicknells.net