Personal Tax For Employer Supplied Laptops, Smartphones etc

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Forums › Finance and wealth management › Personal Tax For Employer Supplied Laptops, Smartphones etc

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272 posts

Ultimate Geek

#773698 2-Mar-2013 20:01

Simple really, turn your work devices off at closing time and back on when you start

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eracode

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#773790 3-Mar-2013 04:55

A little off topic but related: I have often wondered about the situation where employees who do large amounts of international business travel are able to rack up huge volumes of Air Points Dollars and then use them to take expensive overseas personal holidays with their spouse/partner with 'free' airfares. The APD's are paid for by the employer and used tax-free by the employee. Often the original business travel is done in Business Class which generates high levels of APD's. My understanding is that all this does not attract Fringe Benefit Tax and I could never figure out why.

Sometimes I just sit and think. Other times I just sit.

NonprayingMantis

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#773800 3-Mar-2013 08:48

eracode: A little off topic but related: I have often wondered about the situation where employees who do large amounts of international business travel are able to rack up huge volumes of Air Points Dollars and then use them to take expensive overseas personal holidays with their spouse/partner with 'free' airfares. The APD's are paid for by the employer and used tax-free by the employee. Often the original business travel is done in Business Class which generates high levels of APD's. My understanding is that all this does not attract Fringe Benefit Tax and I could never figure out why.

Probably something to do with the incidental nature of getting apds asa result of flying. also the fact that they are at no cost to the employer

old3eyes

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#773802 3-Mar-2013 08:56

I guess soon the IRD will want all telco to supply itemized cell fone accounts so that employers can ask their staff to go thru them and mark what are personal calls and what are business. You'll then be expected to pay for the personal calls.

I've seen this in one company I worked at with normal fone calls.

Regards,

Old3eyes

NonprayingMantis

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#773861 3-Mar-2013 12:45

old3eyes: I guess soon the IRD will want all telco to supply itemized cell fone accounts so that employers can ask their staff to go thru them and mark what are personal calls and what are business. You'll then be expected to pay for the personal calls.

I've seen this in one company I worked at with normal fone calls.

When I worked in an accounting dept in the uk at a large legal firm this exact thing happened. At that point many years ago only the top brass had phones, so you had the ridiculous situation of these high flyers taking probably 100 quid or more worth of billable hours out of their day to go over a phone bill and highlight 5 quids worth of personal calls, then going down to the accounts department and handing over the cash to the accounts receivable guy (me). Absurd.

gzt

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#773877 3-Mar-2013 13:35

My guess is that was expense accounting but either way it would be easy enough to use a dialler app to keep track of that these days.

The Herald article is short on detail. This is the original IRD discussion paper published in November.. The relevant part starts around page 36.

I guess the taxman is concerned these devices and associated communication costs are being provided as an untaxed salary benefit in some cases.

Even so, there are numerous references in the paper to incidental personal use and the kind of use that is not worth the cost of compliance monitoring. I personally doubt IRD intends what is being promoted in the press.

Providing portable [network] policy compliant communications devices increases availability and provides the opportunity to use time effectively and with flexibility. Personal use is incidental in that context.

lxsw20

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#773880 3-Mar-2013 13:58

NonprayingMantis:
old3eyes: I guess soon the IRD will want all telco to supply itemized cell fone accounts so that employers can ask their staff to go thru them and mark what are personal calls and what are business. You'll then be expected to pay for the personal calls.

I've seen this in one company I worked at with normal fone calls.

When I worked in an accounting dept in the uk at a large legal firm this exact thing happened. At that point many years ago only the top brass had phones, so you had the ridiculous situation of these high flyers taking probably 100 quid or more worth of billable hours out of their day to go over a phone bill and highlight 5 quids worth of personal calls, then going down to the accounts department and handing over the cash to the accounts receivable guy (me). Absurd.

This is exactly what happens at the law firm I work for. Except partners just give the form to their PA and tell them to figure it out. If the personal bill is under $10 they don't worry about it.

surfisup1000

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#773892 3-Mar-2013 14:22

sleemanj: It's a ridiculous idea.

There is already FBT which is silly enough in itself if you ask me.

If they start going down that road, then people would be quite justified in wanting to claim expenses for their personal things which might sometimes be used in the course of doing business, then we descend into the maze like taxation systems that other countries have.

When it comes to tax, K.I.S.S! Complicated regimes just lead to less compliance.

I've heard it commented that the US can just about catch anyone out on tax matters due to their system being so hideously complex.

JimmyH

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#773915 3-Mar-2013 16:25

NonprayingMantis:
old3eyes: I guess soon the IRD will want all telco to supply itemized cell fone accounts so that employers can ask their staff to go thru them and mark what are personal calls and what are business. You'll then be expected to pay for the personal calls.

I've seen this in one company I worked at with normal fone calls.

When I worked in an accounting dept in the uk at a large legal firm this exact thing happened. At that point many years ago only the top brass had phones, so you had the ridiculous situation of these high flyers taking probably 100 quid or more worth of billable hours out of their day to go over a phone bill and highlight 5 quids worth of personal calls, then going down to the accounts department and handing over the cash to the accounts receivable guy (me). Absurd.

It was like that at my old employer, and we had to pay if it was over $5 for the month. While I have had to carry a work phone for most of the last 18 years (don't at the moment), I always carry a personal one as well and use it for all personal calls. It's just much less hassle.

Kyanar

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#774112 4-Mar-2013 09:38

surfisup1000:
sleemanj: It's a ridiculous idea.

There is already FBT which is silly enough in itself if you ask me.

If they start going down that road, then people would be quite justified in wanting to claim expenses for their personal things which might sometimes be used in the course of doing business, then we descend into the maze like taxation systems that other countries have.

When it comes to tax, K.I.S.S! Complicated regimes just lead to less compliance.

I've heard it commented that the US can just about catch anyone out on tax matters due to their system being so hideously complex.

Yup. Even leaving the country doesn't protect you, since you're meant to pay tax on money earned everywhere from every place.

Hell, renouncing US citizenship doesn't even do it, since they apparently don't have to recognise your renunciation.

mudguard

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#774478 4-Mar-2013 18:24

JimmyH:
It was like that at my old employer, and we had to pay if it was over $5 for the month. While I have had to carry a work phone for most of the last 18 years (don't at the moment), I always carry a personal one as well and use it for all personal calls. It's just much less hassle.

I couldn't think of anything worse than carrying two phones. I work for a Telco and if I had to separate personal from work calls (I think I have 1000 minutes, 1.5GB or something, I should know!) I would use two and simply leave the phone at my desk when I finished work. We don't have landlines at work either, all mobile.

I can understand the point, we have work laptops as well and though I'm one of the few that has nothing personal on it (I have more than enough laptops) so quite often leave it at work. But I wonder what the implications would be for us. One work colleague has a young boy, so she's often in at 11am but often still working at midnight at home, so I don't know how you would check it.

JimmyH

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#774516 4-Mar-2013 19:28

Yes, carrying two phones was a bit of a PITA. However:

- The accounting system was hell, and it was so much trouble reconciling and sorting that it was just better to avoid the whole mess by keeping personal use separate.

- The last employer was also security mad. For instance all texts through work phones were logged and stored centrally, forever. I didn't want, for instance, "certain" (cough) texts from the GF etc becoming a matter of perusal for bored people in IT.

- Some sites (Trademe for instance) were blocked on work computers and phones. Having a private smartphone to check them was useful.

Klipspringer

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#775692 6-Mar-2013 14:40

networkn:
Klipspringer:
ubergeeknz:
Klipspringer:
floydbloke: Flexible hours, telecommuting/working from home and on the road are all here and here to stay.

Not if you working for Yahoo

And CEOs of companies which are actually successful are saying they're doing the complete wrong thing...

I don't know. Part of me agrees with Marissa Mayer.
From my experience, people working from home tend to slack off quiet conciderably. We use to allow it, but now we allow it on a case by case bases only.

Back to topic ...

This! We see so many employment issues as IT Providers, for workers who work from home. Complications all over the place.

Best Buy Follows Yahoo in Banning Working from home

Best Buy, in the midst of a corporate restructuring, has canceled its flexible work program and expects corporate employees to put in traditional 40-hour work weeks at the retailer's headquarters in Richfield, Minn.

gzt

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#775714 6-Mar-2013 15:16

Best Buy has not banned working from home: "On an individual basis, an employee and a manager will have the opportunity to work out an arrangement that's in everyone's interests," Furman says. "But for the most part, the goal is to have employees in [the office] whenever possible."

Best Buy is going through a restructuring process. Yahoo is going through something similar.

MikeB4

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#775746 6-Mar-2013 16:01

So following the logic BYOD's should bring a tax credit to the supplier

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