HMRC has announced that a smartphone, supplied by your employer, will now be treated as a mobile phone and need not be included on your P11D as a benefit in kind.

Having said that I think most people have always treated their smartphone as  a mobile phone anyway! Even HMRC seem to agree  when they say:

In most instances an employer-provided smartphone will not have been reported to HMRC as a taxable benefit.

There are two important points relating to this statement though:-

1. If you did treat your smartphone as a taxable benefit you may be entitled to a tax repayment (see final section of statement); and;
2. It does not cover tablet computers.

HMRC have released the latest version of Basic PAYE Tools, a software package to help you run your payroll throughout the year.

The tool allows you to work out the tax and National Insurance contributions (NICs) for your employees in each pay period and, if you have up to and including nine employees at 5 April, you will be able to file your Employer Annual Return (forms P35 and P14) online. You can also use it to file your starter and leaver forms (P45 and P46) online.

Not even I at my most cynical would have believed that two of the major parts in next year’s Kendal Passion Play, Jesus and Caiaphas, would have been given to the Mayor of Kendal and his deputy!

The Westmorland Gazette has a story on the improvements which will be made to Highgate but has ignored who is actually paying for it and, more importantly, who should be paying for it.

South Lakeland District Council (SLDC) has ‘contributed’ £160,000 of the cost but nowhere does it mention that K Shopping Village should have paid SLDC £100,000 of the cost, under what is called a Section 106 agreement, which in very simple terms is their contribution to Kendal as a result of being given planning permission for the Shopping Village.

Amazingly SLDC have allowed K Shopping Village to ‘defer’ the payment which means that we (the council taxpayers) are having to pay for it instead! And as far as I can tell there is no guarantee that the money will ever be paid.

I’m not alone in my worries either. Councillor Tom Harvey, in the comments on an earlier story, said

I didn’t say I agree with taking the risk, in fact I don’t because I have real concerns that we may not see the money from K-village.

What really interests me in these difficult economic times is will K Shopping Village allow its tenants to ‘defer’ their rent and will SLDC allow businesses to ‘defer’ their business rates?

Personally I doubt it.

I thought I may have been a little harsh on Mr Beveridge, last week, when I criticised Cumbria LEP. He did, after all, admit their website needed updating.

I never dreamt, however, that he would go straight back from the interview and make sure it was updated (see below)

What surprised me though was that the document, they added, is dated September 2010 and is, in fact, the original proposal document put forward to the Government to apply to set up and run the local enterprise partnership.

Either Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership think we are all idiots or they are all idiots themselves, for thinking they can get away with this cynical disregard for Cumbrian businesses.

South Lakeland District Council has upset a Kendal baker so much over their decision to ban A-boards on pavements that he has decided to ban the planning commitee which decided on the new rules.

As the shop is on the main route to the Council’s offices his sign will not go unnoticed! And because it’s on the steps up to his shop they can’t ask him to remove it as it’s not on the footpath.

Well done Simon and Julie. Perhaps more businesses should tell the council what they think of them?

Unfortunately HMRC’s build-up to the answer to my question wasn’t worth waiting 16 weeks for! In a nutshell, they said

Although I can confirm that the information is held by HMRC, I am not prepared to release it to you because it is exempt information under the FOIA. The cost to HMRC of using Moira Stuart to publicise SA deadlines is information related  to an identifiable individual and constitutes personal data for the purposes of the Data Protection Act 1998. Such information is exempt from disclosure.

The full reply is here.

If you have a spare 30 minutes over the weekend, and have been wondering why the Cumbrian economy has languished over the last ten years,  listen to Radio Cumbria interviewing George Beveridge, “interim chair” of Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership.

This link will take you to BBC iPlayer. The interview itself is 2 hours 28 minutes 35 seconds into the programme (2:28:35).

Alternatively, fast forward to 2:54:29 when he answers my question on the internet, Twitter and the Cumbria LEP website. I especially liked his comment about “updating” the website with details of the Growing Places Fund which was announced nearly three months ago!

P.S Coincidentally the website has been updated this afternoon!

After (only) 16 weeks and numerous reminders, HMRC have responded to my Freedom of Information request asking how much they paid Moira Stuart for the Self Assessment advertising campaign by saying

I can confirm that HMRC will be providing you with a further response.  I expect you should have the response by this Friday.

Bearing in mind they should have replied within 20 working days (unless there’s a good reason),  this exemplifies, once again, HMRC’s “couldn’t care less” attitude to the public, as personified by Dave Hartnett.

Earlier today I wrote

Harry Redknapp has made tax fun and has allowed me to talk to football supporters for the first time in my life and be knowledgeable too!

The editor of AccountingWEB thought it good enough to include in their story on the Harry Redknapp case, which has had to be pulled because the comments may have been in contempt of court. And you thought accountants were boring!

I have never known so many people of differing backgrounds and interests follow a tax case so closely. Yesterday I found myself reading tweets from James Pearce, the BBC Sports News Correspondent, who is at the court. Every so often, he has to leave the courtroom so that he can send a tweet, Twitter and presumably the use of smartphones are forbidden in the courtroom itself.

I was so impressed with his coverage of events that I added him  to my Twitter list, TaxTweets, so thatI could read his tweets easier. Bearing in mind this list includes HMRC, Taxation magazine and The Tax Journal I thought I should at least tweet him and tell him, never expecting an answer.