Scrooge Or Santa, Christmas Gifting To Employees Explained

Whether Christmas fills you with dread or joy, you can avoid the HMRC sorrow by ensuring that any employee gifts meet the Benefit In Kind rules. Here, MJB Avanti explain the BiK criteria.

If you are an employer and looking to give a small Christmas bonus to your employees, then your best option is probably to give them a gift. In order to ensure that this is not a taxable gift, it is important to ensure that the trivial benefits in kind (BiK) rules apply.

There is no tax to pay on trivial benefits in kind (BiK) provided to employees where all of the following apply:

• the benefit is not cash or a cash-voucher; and
• costs £50 or less; and
• is not provided as part of a salary sacrifice or other contractual arrangement; and
• is not provided in recognition of services performed by the employee as part of their employment, or in anticipation of such services.

So, for example a turkey that cost £45 would qualify as would a £15 bottle of wine. It is also possible to provide employees with a gift voucher (not a cash-voucher) where the value is £50 or less. It is important to remember that the gifts must not be provided in recognition of the employees’ services but merely as a gesture of goodwill at Christmas.

There is an annual cap for directors of a ‘close’ company of £300 per year. If the Christmas gifts have a value of over £50 or cannot be counted as a trivial benefit then the gift must be reported on form P11D and Class 1A NICs will be payable on the value of the gift.

For more details, please visit MJB Avanti’s website.