Salary sacrifice for work training

12 replies

Missmummy88 · 30/05/2021 07:34

Hello,
Is it reasonable to request salary sacrifice for training from my employer. I’ve never heard of anyone doing this but I really want to advance in my career with some related training that will take about a year and cost about £3500. My company are a small start up so wouldn’t have the budget to provide this but I don’t want that to stop me.

Have you done it? Is there anything I should be aware of? I was thinking of asking for a salary sacrafice of £300 per month for 12 months ish.
We could afford that salary sacrafice as a family - money wouldn’t be too tight but would give me much more opportunity in the future to become a higher earner when kids are older and inevitably cost more!

OP posts:

Biker47 · 30/05/2021 15:08

What benefits are you hoping to get out of "asking for salary sacrifice" that makes it better than just paying for it yourself out of your wages or on a credit card, like what a lot of people do?

Yellow85 · 30/05/2021 15:19

I can definitely be done, but a few things to consider:

Does your company already offer SS? If not they’d have to set ip and agreement with HMRC to do it.
Highlight the company saving too, as they will save tax too.

Do they already do P11ds? Again they’d be adding to admin.

Are you close to or near minimum wage? They can’t leave you with less than this after pension and SS deductions.

Aprilx · 30/05/2021 15:30

You cannot salary sacrifice for anything you like, it is only possible with certain types of expenditure (e.g. childcare, pensions). And from the top of my head, I do not believe that training to advance your career is one of the allowed salary sacrifice expenditures.

Training expenditure to advance your career is generally not a tax deductible expense generally (I am referring to outside of any salary sacrifice scheme), only training that allows you to maintain your skills is allowable, not to gain new ones.

Yellow85 · 30/05/2021 15:41

Work related training is a permitted element for salary sacrifice currently.

blueluce85 · 30/05/2021 16:47

@yellow85 can you post the link to where hmrc say this? I can't find it?!

maddening · 30/05/2021 16:56

At 300 per month could you not just get a loan and pay for the course upfront?

blueluce85 · 30/05/2021 17:11

@maddening they are trying to do it out of pre tax salary rather than post tax salary (plus interest free) so it works out considerably cheaper

flowery · 30/05/2021 17:50

I’m pretty sure work related training hasn’t been tax exempt through salary sacrifice for a while, although I’m not a payroll expert so happy to be corrected.

maddening · 30/05/2021 19:14

It isn't tax exempt on the gov website?

Original poster

Missmummy88 · 31/05/2021 08:29

Yes it would purely be for a tax benefit a bit like tax free childcare (which I don’t use) is it a headache for my employer? I don’t want to cause them a load of stress by implementing it. No one does any sacrafice in my company so not sure if it sets up a whole new work stream for them?

OP posts:

flowery · 31/05/2021 10:59

But it wouldn’t be tax free OP? There are only very limited benefits that it is lawful to operate a pre-tax salary sacrifice for, such as childcare, pension.

Trying81 · 31/05/2021 12:11

It can’t be done salary sacrifice.

Can you not get a student loan for it? I funded some work related training that way

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