Lesley Fidler, tax director at RSM, formerly Baker Tilly, gives a roundup of the key employment tax issues to consider including radical changes to travel and subsistence rules, budget for the National Living Wage and tax liabilities, approved professional bodies and HMRC filing glitch over share schemes
Travel and subsistence: change coming as government reviews tax rules
The latest discussion document in relation to travel and subsistence was published by HM Treasury on 23 September, with responses to its 21 questions sought by 16 December. It states that any changes should be cost neutral, so that additional reliefs will have to be balanced by additional restrictions in other areas. It suggests that tax relief for the cost of an employee’s day subsistence when travelling is outdated now that subsidised staff canteens at the ordinary place of work are largely a thing of the past.
The expected legislation for 2015/16 restricting tax relief on travel and subsistence for employees working through employment intermediaries is acknowledged, but ‘the government intends that this review will not change the outcome… but the resultant legislation will be considered as part of this wider review’. In a return to some of the pre-1998 rules, the suggested principles underpinning any changes include that ‘any tests should be objective and based on measurable facts as far as possible – they should not rely on the intentions of the employees’.
In a welc
