Ironically BT a huge company started to go towards free tea and coffee but this was stopped by HMRC (the taxman) who wanted to charge tax on this benefit in kind - and you think the IRS is bad.
That sounds like a cover story some accountant made up to justify penny pinching. I've never heard of stuff like that being taxed.
Yes, the company has to pay tax over the free food we give our employees because it's considered part of their pay. In the grand scheme of things: big fucking deal.
It's cool in a larger company where you have a well-stocked cafeteria where you can buy good food at heavily subsidized prices.
But in small companies this micro bean counter attitude in order to avoid taxes is actually more demotivating and divisive than not providing free food at all. Especially if you're in the middle of the city and people have dozens of options to go out for lunch.
Still much less hassle-free if you ask me.
And HMRC have form in this area when the company had a high level query about some thing they wanted to implement HMRC said no - So the CFO implemented profit related pay which reduced the tax take as a fuck you to the taxman.
The IRS has a guideline that says (not exact words) "if it's too petty to keep track of, like someone using the Xerox machine for personal use, don't worry about it." Free cans of soda probably fall in that petty category.
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/payerti/employee/changes/new-benefit....
It's always been non-taxable as far as I can remember and a quick google is not bringing anything up.
That said the online guidance on what counts as a trivial benefit, http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/eimanual/EIM21863.htm, says:
>"Tea and coffee
>An employer may provide its employees with access in the workplace to tea, coffee or water from a cooling dispenser. If this refreshment is available generally to all employees, the benefit is exempt from charge (EIM21670). If the exemption does not apply, you should accept that these refreshments represent a trivial benefit." //
But it very much depends on how the benefit is provided, voucher schemes work differently and there is an assessment of the value of the benefit involved.
Other references:
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/paye/exb/a-z/a/ http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/paye/exb/a-z/m/meals.htm
Read the parent I replied to. He was claiming HMRC was trying to get BT to charge income tax for a benefit of tea and coffee.
I challenged it because I was interested if this was ever true and also it's never good to let rumours like this to exist, the UK is a great place to start a business and misinformation like this shouldn't go unchallenged.
The page I linked says that it's not normally the case. But it's clear in the guidance that a not unusual construction of such a scheme, eg using vouchers and an external provider, would make it that tax/NICs were due on the hot-drinks a a benefit-in-kind.
It's not provably misinformation but it is deficient and doesn't demonstrate the verity of the claim.