Since 1998 the security guarding industry has utilised travel and subsistence tax planning opportunities to alleviate ever increasing costs of employment. The opportunity arose by swapping legitimate business expenses incurred by employees for taxable pay. This mechanism is more commonly referred to as salary sacrifice.
At the turn of the 2015/16 tax year, new legislation was introduced based on the Finance Act 2015 stipulating that some expenses relating to travel and subsistence could no longer be paid to employees in conjunction with a salary sacrifice, nor could the payment of certain expenses effect the amount of pay an employee receives.
This coupled with the introduction of the new National Living Wage for over 25’s will have a significant effect on the margin of any business, let alone a security business where each one-percent profit represents a major share of return.
Subsequent to a thorough review of HMRC’s legislation, Cobia has been navigating clients through these changes so that employees and employers continue to benefit in to the new tax year and beyond by adapting the parameters of the existing arrangements.
Cobia suggest a free of charge review of any existing arrangements to ensure compliance surrounding the new legislation or indeed client’s may wish to benefit from the current planning opportunities still available