Have you taken advantage of the trivial benefits legislation to treat yourself this Christmas? If not and you are the director of a company, you really should!
You can buy yourself a physical gift or gift card through your company up to the value of £50 and it will be tax deductible for your company and tax free for you. There will be no Class 1A National Insurance due either.
In fact, you can do this several times a year as a director but you are capped at £300 in total and £50 per occasion. That’s right, so when it’s your birthday you can treat yourself as well!
Just be careful that you aren’t rewarding yourself for your services, e.g. it needs to be for a non business occasion rather than because you’ve had your best month ever.
You can also spread the joy with your team. It is the season for giving after all. Again, you just need to be careful that you aren’t rewarding them for their services e.g. because they hit their sales target.
Also, be mindful that you can’t give cash for this purpose nor can you give vouchers that are readily convertible to cash. That’s why gift cards are great for this purpose. Feel free to be creative with your gift giving though. A wine hamper, a Norfolk Bronze turkey, etc are all acceptable as long as they are below £50 in value for each recipient.
Merry Christmas and all the best for 2019!
