Christmas Entertaining

At this time of the year business owners and their employees are planning their Christmas celebrations; this may, or may not, include a party or meal out together.

The cost of a staff party or other annual entertainment is allowed as a deduction for tax purposes. Also, as long as the criteria below are followed, there will be no taxable benefit charged to employees:

1. The event must be open to all employees at a particular location.

2. The cost is only tax deductible for employees and their guests (which would include directors in the case of a company) but not sole traders and business partners in the case of unincorporated organisations.

3. An annual Christmas party or other annual events offered to staff, generally is not taxable on those attending provided that the average cost per head of the functions does not exceed £150 (inc VAT) p.a. The guests of staff attending are included in the head count when computing the cost per head attending.

4. All costs must be taken into account, including the costs of transport to and from the event or accommodation provided, and VAT. The total cost of the event is merely divided by the number attending to find the average cost. If the limit is exceeded then individual members of staff will be taxable on their average cost, plus the cost for any guests they were permitted to bring. No deduction will be allowed for the £150 exemption.

5. VAT input tax can be recovered on staff entertaining expenditure. If the guests of staff are also invited to the event the input tax has to be apportioned, as the VAT applicable to non-staff is not recoverable. However, if non-staff attendees pay a reasonable contribution to the event, all the VAT can be reclaimed and of course output tax should be accounted for on the amount of the contribution. If these limits are breached employers can pick up the tax cost by using a PAYE settlement agreement.

A final note on ‘Trivial’ gifts for employees

Employers may find the following Revenue concession useful - we have copied the note directly from the HMRC handbook:

"An employer may provide employees with a seasonal gift, such as a turkey, an ordinary bottle of wine or a box of chocolates at Christmas. All of these gifts are considered to be trivial and as such are not taxable. For an employer with a large number of employees the total cost of providing a gift to each employee may be considerable, but where the gift to each employee is a trivial benefit, this principle applies regardless of the total cost to the employer and the number of employees concerned."

One final cautionary note regarding VAT and staff gifts, VAT is chargeable by the employer when an employee receives gifts totalling more than £50 in a year. Turkeys, however, are zero rated for VAT purposes!