UK Considers Tax on Personal PC Use at Work

May 2, 2006 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - A budget proposal by Chancellor Gordon Brown could force UK employers and employees to pay tax for personal email and internet use on work computers.

Personneltoday.com reports that tax experts say businesses could be made to pay £210 tax a year on every work computer used for sending personal e-mails or surfing the internet.

The proposal seeks to classify computers used for significant non-business purposes as benefits in kind. The classification would require employees to pay income tax on them and employers would have to pay national insurance contributions, according to the news report.

The Chartered Institute of Taxation said the change will become a “new bureaucratic burden” on employers, but the Treasury said the regulations would not have a significant effect on businesses and that the law had been designed to prevent fraud or “blatant overuse” of company computers.

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