Company Mobile & BIK

ima_poster

I have a company mobile phone that is also for personal use and is not considered as a benefit in kind. My employer now wants to charge employees if they exceed a certain data allowance (the company one is a collective limit). Would this have any income tax implications?

TheCyclingProgrammer

Employers are allowed to provide a single mobile phone for both business and personal use without there being any BIK.

A businesses own internal policy for employee personal usage is just that - an internal policy. Presumably they want to keep control of the data costs to the business although if they deduct the cost from your salary I would imagine it would need to be deducted from your post-tax salary.

Berkshire_Beancounter

My company used to provide us with mobile phones for company use. Making personal calls / texts was allowed, but there was a facility to repay the cost of any personal calls or texts made through the expenses system (either by deducting the cost of personal calls from any expenses claimed, or a straight deduction from payroll if you weren't claiming expenses that period). All down to the individual to be honest and repay the appropriate amount, but managers were sent details of employees phone usage if they wanted to check it.

As TheCyclingProgrammer said, any repayment was made from post tax salary. And there weren't any income tax implications on us as employees.

tebthereb

I read the OP’s comment about income tax implications as “can I claim relief” for the costs he has to repay. Certainly the internal policy doesn’t invalidate the exemption for company provided mobile phones.

He doesn’t mention a policy to repay personal costs just a charge for exceeding a certain data limit.

If the costs he has to repay relate to business, there may be some argument for income tax relief - but the costs would have to be incurred wholly, exclusively and necessarily in the performance of the duties of employment which is likely to be difficult to justify in practice and the hassle of trying a claim may outweigh any benefit.