Accomodation Allowance

Re: Accomodation Allowance

salome2001 — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 22:37:14 GMT

[quote user="Sandy Edwards"]

from an employers point of view dont give a female vet housing allowance as this has to be paid in full throughout maternity leave , give her a pay rise !!

[/quote]

a great way to find yourself in employment tribunal as it constitutes sex discrimination, which has no limit to compensation.

Re: Accomodation Allowance

Sandy Edwards — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 22:20:37 GMT

from an employers point of view dont give a female vet housing allowance as this has to be paid in full throughout maternity leave , give her a pay rise !!

Re: Accomodation Allowance

salome2001 — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 21:10:55 GMT

look at your contract. I used to work for a corporate practice that did provide accommodation in a flat above the practice, but the contract for that clearly stated that there was NO monetary difference if you chose to live elsewhere; unlike their car allowance which gave me an extra £200 a month if I chose not to have the company car

Re: Accomodation Allowance

Hanna Bennett — Sun, 09 May 2010 09:19:36 GMT

our accountants quoted that very bit of legislation at us to confirm we were still ok to continue paying our assistants on that basis.

Re: Accomodation Allowance

Rob Loxley — Sat, 08 May 2010 18:16:55 GMT

[quote user="Niall Taylor"]Sigh, well, if you're going to use actual evidence as part of your argument I'm going to resign my membership of the Association of Barrack room Lawyers[/quote]

It's ok, we've not yet defined 'necessary', 'proper', 'better', 'close' or 'regularly', and I guess HMRC have their own ideas...

Re: Accomodation Allowance

Niall Taylor — Sat, 08 May 2010 17:46:15 GMT

[quote user="robloxley"]Latest online (09/10) HMRC helpsheet :
"Is my living accommodation exempt from tax?
Some living accommodation provided is exempt from tax. etc... veterinary surgeons who live close to the practice in order to respond
regularly to emergency calls"[/quote]

Sigh, well, if you're going to use actual evidence as part of your argument I'm going to resign my membership of the Association of Barrack room Lawyers .

Thanks Rob.

Niall

Re: Accomodation Allowance

Rob Loxley — Sat, 08 May 2010 12:47:54 GMT

[quote user="Niall Taylor"] It certainly doesn't apply now, not since HMRC have become aware of it. Personally I think it probably never existed at all, people just got away with it, so there is a good argument to let sleeping dogs lie.[/quote]

Latest online (09/10) HMRC helpsheet :
"Is my living accommodation exempt from tax?
Some living accommodation provided is exempt from tax. The rules for
exemption are that:
• the living accommodation is necessary for the proper performance of
the duties of your job, or
• you are in the kind of employment where it is customary for living
accommodation to be provided and the living accommodation enables you
to perform your duties better, or...
... The main occupations which satisfy the rules for exemption are: ...
... • veterinary surgeons who live close to the practice in order to respond
regularly to emergency calls"

But HMRC are tightening up on what/who falls into this, so speak to them +/- a good tax accountant for advice.

Re: Accomodation Allowance

Niall Taylor — Sat, 08 May 2010 12:17:51 GMT

[quote user="Malcolm Ness"]Even if you are contracted to do on cal, this tax "loop-hole" is probably not there.[/quote]

Too true - this is an old assumption about not having to pay tax on accommodation expenses so long as you met certain conditions, often the practice would have to insist you lived in a certain place for your job. It certainly doesn't apply now, not since HMRC have become aware of it. Personally I think it probably never existed at all, people just got away with it, so there is a good argument to let sleeping dogs lie.

You need to look at your whole package and compare that - cherry picking car allowance, housing allowance, basic salary, pension/insurance contributions paid by your employer, staff pet allowance etc etc etc will result in a comparing apples and oranges situation. All these are just ways of getting money into your pocket, some are tax claimable but you should be doing that yourself based on HMRC regs, mileage, car engine size etc not on how much you get in each arbitrary section of your pay.

Presumably you chase your employer to reduce your housing allowance when rental values fall as they did a while back .

Niall

Re: Accomodation Allowance

PATRICK MARSHALL — Sat, 08 May 2010 09:11:57 GMT

"I agree with Malcolm" - This tax loophole does not exist - or only in very carefully defined and restricted circumstances

Find out the proper rent for the property and get it added to your salary. Even if I own the property in which assistants live or arrange a let for them I always add the amount to their salary and they pay it direct -even if I end up as guarantor. That way it is totally transparent to HMCR, which it needs to be in the current economic climate. They need to increase their revenue and will do whatever it takes.

Paddy Marshall

Re: Accomodation Allowance

Malcolm Ness — Fri, 07 May 2010 22:24:11 GMT

[quote user="Hanna Bennett"]If you do no on call then the tax loophole is not there. [/quote]

Even if you are contracted to do on cal, this tax "loop-hole" is probably not there. See the hassle that J Wray has just had with the revenue about this kind of issue. Just because a lot of people have got away with this in the past doesn't mean that it still stands. What's more, once the revenue get latched on to this they can hit you for a lot of retrospective tax, costs, interest and fines. Be careful!

Re: Accomodation Allowance

Hanna Bennett — Fri, 07 May 2010 21:57:06 GMT

our contracts state that our vets have to live at a certain address (which is chosen by them but must be within a certain distance of the practice for on call). If you do no on call then the tax loophole is not there. It means that you can save paying tax on rent as this comes out of the package before salary is paid. Agree that it should be either a tax free accommodation allowance or a serious raise....

Re: Accomodation Allowance

Fiona French — Fri, 07 May 2010 19:23:35 GMT

I was offered £500 a month accommodation allowance when I moved out of the practice owned house at my last practice, thought that was fair.

If you do out of hours work and are required to live close to the practice you should not have to pay tax on the allowance.

Re: Accomodation Allowance

Wren — Fri, 07 May 2010 11:53:40 GMT

When I moved out of my rented house (rent paid directly to the landlord by the practice) and onto my then-boyfriend-now-husband's farm my boss raised my wages by the exact amount that he had formerly paid out in rent which I thought was fair. I had previously paid tax on the amount as a taxable benefit and am now paying income tax on the increase but it's swings and roundabouts and there wasn't much difference either way.

Re: Accomodation Allowance

Louise6732 — Fri, 07 May 2010 11:04:40 GMT

Hmm, I've think I've been had with my salary! I graduated 2009 and I don't have any sort of accommodation allowance included in my salary, I'm renting privately and paying for that out of my current wage. I didn't have the option to live in a practice house as the practice doesn't have any living space! I am working in 100% small animal practice though, I wonder if housing allowance is more a mixed/large animal practice thing? Any thoughts?

Re: Accomodation Allowance

Rob Loxley — Fri, 07 May 2010 03:21:09 GMT

The difficulty is that the commercial rental value, what you living there actually costs the practice, and what the financial benefit to you of living there is, are 3 (possibly very) different figures.
So agreed, look at the whole salary package picture rather than just the rental value, and negotiate on this.

Re: Accomodation Allowance

Michael Woodhouse — Fri, 07 May 2010 00:53:30 GMT

[quote user="Colin Buchan"]

It was a 2 bedroom terraced house, i guess commercial rental value would be around £375pcm.

Is it fair to ask for the SPVS average and take it from there?

[/quote]

So that's £4,500 per year. I was offered the option of practice house or £5,000 added to salary so I don't think that level of a rise is out of the question.

Add all your other benefits and compare to the SPVS figures and ask! See how good you are at bargaining!

Re: Accomodation Allowance

Rob Smith — Thu, 06 May 2010 19:23:31 GMT

Little tip - it's "accommodation" not "accomodation"!

Re: Accomodation Allowance

Colin Buchan — Thu, 06 May 2010 19:06:21 GMT

It was a 2 bedroom terraced house, i guess commercial rental value would be around £375pcm.

Is it fair to ask for the SPVS average and take it from there?

Re: Accomodation Allowance

Michael Woodhouse — Tue, 04 May 2010 23:11:08 GMT

What type of accommodation did you have? What was it's commercial value if rented out to anyone else? That would be my starting point.