The Fizz! Blog

Are you giving your staff enough time off?

From 1 April 2009, the minimum paid annual leave that employers must to give their employees increased.  For a full time worker, the old minimum was 24 days.  Now it's 28 days.

For part-timers, and people joining part-way through a holiday year, Business Link has provided a calculator for working out their holiday entitlement.

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BlackBerry tax planning

I've just got a BlackBerry.  It's a pretty amazing little thing, although the emphasis is very much on the "little" at the moment - but I'm sure my fingers will get used to the tiny keyboard eventually.

An employer is allowed to provide an employee with a mobile phone, tax-free.  In other words, the employee doesn't pay any tax in return for the benefit of having access to the phone, regardless of how much personal use he or she makes of it.  Unlike with, say, a company car, where the employee does pay tax in return for the benefit of using it.  It used to be the case that the employee could be given multiple phones on that basis, until the Revenue realised that many business owners were providing phones to their spouse and children and putting the whole lot through the company books.  So at that point the law was changed to limit an employee to just one phone.

Apparently, though, a BlackBerry isn't classed as a phone for tax purposes.  It's classed as a computer.  And providing an employee with the use of a computer (as long as there is at least occasional business use) is another tax-free benefit - but without that "one per employee" limitd.  So, as long as the cost isn't prohibitive, some business owners will no doubt be considering dishing out BlackBerrys to their families, all paid through their company.  Worth thinking about, as long as you trust the kids not to run up bills that dwarf the tax savings!

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MP sacked for normal, mainstream tax planning

I have as much contempt for MPs as anyone else, and firmly believe that they should be first against the wall come the revolution.

At the same time, the witch hunt over expenses is becoming, in some aspects, ridiculous.  Kitty Ussher MP has been sacked as a minister for changing the home she nominated as her "principal private residence" for tax purposes for a month in order to escape paying Capital Gains Tax on its sale.  That's just standard tax planning.  You learn about it when you're studying for your tax exams when you're training as a chartered accountant.  People do it all the time.  If you look at any online tax forum (OK, it's maybe just me who looks at those) then you'll find tons of queries on the mechanics of how to do it, and how long you need to change the nomination for.

On top of that, it's somehow being held as further evidence against her that she sought and received the advice of an accountant on doing it.  Surely seeking and paying for professional advice on the subject legitimises her actions?  If she'd taken no advice and just hadn't told the taxman about the sale and hoped to get away with it (as other MPs have probably done) then I could see that as dishonest.  But getting written professional advice in advance?

It's one thing to be angry when MPs exploit the rules in ways that we civilians can't or won't.  But sacking them for doing things that "normal" taxpayers do all the time, on the basis of written professional advice, is frankly bizarre.

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Holiday pay for the long-term sick

There was some publicity over the weekend (pretty neutral in the case of The Telegraph, doom and gloom in The Mail) about the decision of the House of Lords in the case of Keith Ainsworth.  He was a tax inspector who was off work sick for two years, after which he left.  When he left, he wasn't paid for the holiday that he hadn't taken over those two years.  His employer (HM Revenue & Customs, obviously) considered that a) he hadn't worked for two years, so wasn't entitled to any holiday in that time and b) even if he was entitled to it, he'd left work without taking it, and that was his loss - he had no right to be paid for it.

Mr Ainsworth thought they were wrong on both counts, and that's what I thought on the face of it as well.  In the case of the first point, I'd have been absolutely certain that HMRC was wrong, and that he was entitled to holidays (and holiday pay) even if off sick.  On the second point, I'd have thought that HMRC was probably wrong, and in the absence of any contractual agreement they couldn't just not pay him for the holidays he'd been unable to take while sick.

Which, although it's taken years of wrangling to finally establish it, is correct.  However, I would have to concede that, reading the detail of the story, the reasons for the verdict were completely different from my reasons and the accuracy of my view was entirely coincidental.  So I'm not going into a career in employment law any time soon.

In any case, if you're an employer, be aware that the rules on holiday pay for those off sick is something that you need to give some thought to if you find yourself with a long-term absentee.

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Networking with Fizz #2 - Turn up!

A short networking tip this week - by and large, networking only works when you're committed to turning up to a group or event month in and month out (or week in and week out) regardless of whether you see instant results or not.  People need to get to know, like and trust you, and that won't happen if you meet them once every six months.

Clearly, this means that it's going to help if you actually enjoy the process.  If you're not actually interested in the people you're talking to and you're just there because you think it may be financially rewarding then you're probably not going to keep going for long.  If, on the other hand, you like going, and you like the people, and you're really interested in what they do and their experiences, and in fact you'd carry on going even if there was no prospect of getting any business from it, then you'll probably do well.  In other words, if you're genuinely not too worried whether or not you'll get any business from the process, you'll probably do fine, but if you're desperate to get some business out of it then you probably won't.

The idea that consistent attendance is a good idea might seem obvious, but I know quite a few people who attend the events I go to, but very irregularly. I imagine that they know they're "supposed" to do some networking, but they're not really that enthusiastic and committed, so they just do enough that they feel they can tick it off their list.  Unfortunately - though it's always possible they meet someone by chance who's perfect for them and wants to do business right away - I suspect that they're probably going to get very little out of it.

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