Employee Benefits

EXPLAINING THE OPTIONS

The range of employee benefits and their pros and cons can seem bewildering, particularly when it comes to tax. We’ll make sense of them for you and guide you in your decision-making. Our advice and support are mostly focused on:

• Pension Schemes
• Auto enrolment solutions and advice
• Scheme administration
• Employee advice and support
• Private Medical Insurance
• Group Life Assurance
• Group Income Protection
• Group Critical Illness
• Dental Insurance
• Health Cash Plan
• International Benefits

We know your employees will also appreciate clear explanations of what’s entailed and how they’ll benefit, so we can also provide face-to-face support at your premises and discuss issues with them individually if required.

HOW WILL THAT IMPACT TAX?

Collaborating with our tax planning and payroll specialists, we’ll give you an integrated, all-round view of how you can offer worthwhile employee benefits whilst minimising tax liability. We’ll also help reduce your administrative burden, by advising on the most effective processes for ensuring compliance.

For example, we can help with:

• Assessing the impact of proposed benefits packages on your employees’ tax and NIC.
• Creating the most tax-efficient benefits packages
• Advising on systems and processes to deal with expenses
• Identifying taxable employee benefit to be deducted through payroll
• Submitting P11D and P11D(b) forms to HMRC, for staff receiving taxable expenses or benefits.
• Advising on non-taxable company benefits and qualifying for tax or class 1A NIC exemption.

THE BIGGER PICTURE

There are other employee benefits you can offer within remuneration packages, that have attractive income and capital gains tax benefits both for you and your employees. Key amongst these are Employee Share Schemes, such as the Enterprise Management Incentive Scheme and Company Share Option Scheme.

These can be very effective at motivating employees without need to offer them a higher salary, but there can be tax penalties if the type of offers made are not HMRC-approved. You’ll find more about these on our Entrepreneurial Tax Advice page.

In addition, we can advise you on:

• Benefit policy reviews & audits
• Benchmarking company benefits
• TUPE support for sourcing and harmonising of benefits.

ARE ALL BENEFITS TAXABLE?

The short answer is no. The long answer is one we’d discuss with you. The following are some of the employee benefits that often do not attract tax, but this is not always the case:

• retirement benefits paid into an employee’s registered pension scheme
• reimbursing additional household costs for employees who work at home
• relocation expenses (up to £8,000 per move)
• cheap or interest-free loans up to £10,000
• sustenance at work: drinks and light refreshments, and meals in your staff canteen
• parking at or near your workplace
• providing one mobile phone per employee for work purposes
• workplace nursery places for your employees’ children
• sports facilities at your premises
• social functions up to £150 per year per employee
• trivial employee benefits up to £50 per employee, covered by an annual price cap. This can be complicated, so we’ll explain it personally.