In July 2014, the Treasury launched a two part consultation on the treatment of tax for travel and subsistence payments. The aim is to bring legislation up to date with modern day working practices.

Jonathon Biddle, Chief Operating Officer at Umbrella.co.uk said “The consultation forms part of a larger review of the tax treatment of employee benefits in kind and expenses and a call for evidence on remuneration practices, following talks with the Office of Tax Simplification.”

The main proposals include:

• Ending of the current £8,500 threshold to simplify the system
• Create a new exemption for ‘trivia’ benefit in kind
• Discussion to replace the current expenses dispensation system with a ‘general business expenses dispensation’. Making expense claims more transparent and consistent between businesses.
• A new system to process benefit in kind instead of submitting P11D’s

Jonathon Biddle said, “Within the market place there are a number of providers offering schemes that do not check and monitor whether legitimate expenses are being claimed and in some cases help workers to over claim to benefit both parties.”

Stewart Davis said, “The proposals within the consultation will help companies like Umbrella.co.uk, who already offer a scheme that monitors worker expenses and only allows legitimate expenses to be processed”