The best way to handle staff with Christmas celebration time and practice strikes

Employers who’re fearful that they aren’t be capable to run Christmas events for his or her workers as a result of strikes and disruption might put them again or ship staff a Christmas hamper.

Robert Salter, a tax companies director at tax and advisory agency, Blick Rothenberg, stated: “The Authorities provides staff a £150 non-taxable threshold yearly for Christmas events, in order that employers can reward their workers with none tax implications.”

He added: “In most years staff use the allowance to throw a Christmas celebration for workers, however this yr as we enter the Christmas Get together Season struggling a wave of practice strikes, and different disruption employers could also be questioning what they need to be doing from a ‘Christmas Get together Season’ perspective.”

Robert Stated: “There’s the choice of placing the celebration again and making it a New Yr’s celebration. Naturally, it will depend on the venue they’ve booked and whether or not that venue is keen to re-schedule the occasion. If the employer is in a position to do that, the tax exemption which applies to Christmas Events the place the per head value is beneath £150 would nonetheless be out there because the £150 per head tax-exempt threshold for Christmas Events is definitely out there to any ‘annual occasions’ which an employer gives in a tax yr – it doesn’t due to this fact should particularly be for a celebration within the run-up to Christmas.”

He added: “ Alternatively, if the employer feels the necessity to cancel the Christmas Get together in full, the employer might ship every of their workers a Christmas hamper of goodies. Offering the hamper prices not more than £50 per individual, this may even be a tax-free present and so – hopefully – convey a little bit of cheer to workers at the moment of yr.”