Assets made available to an employee

3 mins

Our experts at DSR Tax Refunds know how hard it is to find good, quality information about HMRC’s tax regulations that is easy to understand, and that’s why we have created these handy guides to tell you everything you need to know. Our aim is to make life easier for our clients and that is why we want to share our expertise with you. You can also call our friendly team on 0330 122 9972 – we’re the tax experts you can trust.
How do you treat assets that are available for personal use by employees?
If you are an employer and you make certain business assets available for your employee to use outside of work, you will have to report this to HMRC and there might be additional tax and National Insurance to pay as a result. These assets can include computers, televisions or bicycles.Cars, vans and living accommodation are covered by different HMRC rules and won’t be covered in this guide – we will cover those separately.
This guide only covers assets which you allow your employees to use for personal use. If the asset has been sold, given or bought then it is treated separately and isn’t covered in this guide – check out our handy guide on that.
Are there any exemptions?
There aren’t many exemptions under this category but if the asset is a piece of office equipment and is solely provided for business use then you won’t need to report this to HMRC or pay any National Insurance on it – unless it is part of a salary sacrifice arrangement, in which case it will need to be reported to HMRC.
What do you need to report and pay?
If the asset isn’t exempt (and as you will have seen, it most likely isn’t) then you need to report it to HMRC and you might be expected to pay National Insurance on it.
There are some expenses which relate to assets for business use which are covered by exemptions (formerly known as dispensations) and in these instances, you don’t have to include them in your end-of-year report to HMRC. Such exemptions include: phone bills, business travel, uniform and tools for work and any business entertainment expenses. If there is no exemption on the asset, you need to report it to HMRC on your P11D form although you won’t need to deduct any tax or National Insurance on the assets if they are purely for business use.
If the asset is used for personal and business use, you need to report it to HMRC on your P11D form and pay Class 1A National Insurance on the value of the benefit.
How do you work out the value of the benefit?
You need to work out the value of the benefit before you can report it to HMRC – to do this you first need to take either the asset’s annual value or the rental/ hire charges you pay for it (whichever value is the greatest) and then add on anything else you have spent on the asset during the year, such as its running costs and so on. The asset’s annual value is then deemed to be 20% of its market value when you first provided it to an employee as a benefit. You then report this value to HMRC.
If either of the following applies, you need to reduce the value proportionately:

If the asset forms part of a salary sacrifice arrangement (if the arrangement was made after 6th April 2017) and the cost of the asset is less than the amount of salary sacrificed, then you need to report the salary amount instead.
How can DSR Tax Refunds help?
We aim to make life as simple as possible for our clients and that includes giving you the information you need to make your taxes (and your life) simpler and less stressful.  Our team of experts at DSR Tax Refunds are always on hand to help our clients and our excellent standing with HMRC means that we can make sure you don’t fall foul of their regulations, while claiming your maximum tax relief. We can even take care of all that paperwork and deal with HMRC on your behalf too. Call our friendly team on 0330 122 9972 – we’re the tax experts you can trust.
This page was last updated on 06/11/2018.

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