Trivial Benefits
Many business owners are now making use of the trivial benefits exemption which was introduced a number of years back. Trivial benefits are an allowable business cost and you don’t have to pay tax or National Insurance on a benefit for an employee/director if all of the following apply:
- it cost you £50 or less to provide (per occurrence)
- it isn’t cash or a cash voucher
- it isn’t a reward for their work or performance
- it isn’t in the terms of their contract
However, directors of a company run by 5 or fewer shareholders can’t receive trivial benefits worth more than £300 per person in a tax year.
Examples of trivial benefits may include a birthday or Christmas gift, a bunch of flowers for a bereavement, or a staff meal out etc. Trivial benefits are in addition to the annual staff party exemption of £150 per head.
But what is the VAT position?
Gifts of goods
Input VAT incurred on the purchase of business gifts can be recovered, but you may also have to account for the output VAT on the cost i.e. effectively pay back the VAT to HMRC, unless the total cost of all the gifts given to the same person does not exceed £50, excluding VAT, in any 12-month period.
In simple terms, to avoid this problem, this means that you should not reclaim input VAT on gifts, where the total of all gifts to the same person in a 12-month period will exceed £50, excluding VAT. This rule applies to gifts to all persons, including directors, employees, customers and suppliers etc.
Staff parties and outings
Where an employer provides entertainment for the benefit of employees, for example to maintain staff morale, it does so wholly for business purposes. Therefore, the input VAT paid on costs such as staff parties, team building exercises, staff outings and similar events is recoverable.
However, there are two exceptions to the general rule. These are where:
- entertainment is provided ONLY to directors, partners or sole proprietors of the business, or
- employees act as hosts to non-employees.
Therefore, unless other employees, other than the owners or directors of the business, attend the event, you cannot reclaim the input VAT incurred. But if other employees attend, all the input VAT is recoverable.
Strictly speaking therefore, if you are a one-person business or a company consisting only of directors, you should not reclaim the input VAT on staff entertaining.
Entertaining others
Entertaining non-employees is not a tax deductible business expense, although it is perfectly acceptable for the business to pay for the cost; it just won’t save you any tax. Therefore, neither can you reclaim input VAT on non-staff entertaining.
If there is a mixture of staff and non-staff at an event, you can apportion the input VAT and reclaim the appropriate proportion. However, if the attendance of non-staff is for the sole purpose of entertaining a non-employee, the input VAT is not recoverable at all.
Further information
More information about theses topics can be found here:
