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Removal of tax exemption from laptops and other ICT equipment for staff to use at home wef 6th April 2006

_{Up to the end of tax year 2005/6, I didn’t have to declare any taxable benefit for OCC staff where they were allowed to use laptops and other ICT equipment at home, provided the original capital cost of acquiring them was less than £2,500 including VAT ( even though you reclaim the VAT). All that has changed for 2006/7, because in his March budget, Gordon Brown announced that this tax exemption was scrapped from 6th April 2006. This means that if your school allows staff to use laptops or other ICT equipment at home and they are allowed to use them privately as well as for official school purposes, I will have to declare a taxable benefit for them in 12 months time. That applies even if in practice, the employee chooses not to use the equipment privately.}

_{There is a way to avoid this. If you draw up a declaration on school letter-headed paper to be signed by the employee along the following lines, it should be effective in preventing a tax charge so that I don’t have to declare a taxable benefit to HMRC at year-end. The wording would be:-}

_{” I………………………………………..employed by………………………………( name of school) declare that any computer equipment provided by the school for my use at home during tax year………………………. has been and will be used only for business purposes, and that any private use will be insignificant and incidental.}

_{Signed……………………………………………. Name of post…………………………………………..}

_{It is advisable for this to be renewed early in each tax year and for all the signed declarations to be filed in one place in the school office, so that in the event of an Employer Compliance visit by inspectors from HM Revenue & Customs, you can produce it. At the same time, it is also advisable that your school’s policy for the use of ICT by staff ( which I assume is there in writing) should say that staff are only allowed to use school ICT equipment at home for the official purposes of the school.}

_{Adrian Freeman}

_{Tax Manager}

_{Oxon CC}

_{County Hall}