EMPLOYEES face a clampdown on using work computers to email friends or surf the Internet after it emerged that both they and their employers could be taxed for the privilege.
TAXABLE BENEFT: The increasing numbers of employees given work laptops could be barred from any personal use or face large tax bills
Under measures slipped quietly into the March Budget, personal use of a company computer will be classed a 'taxable benefit'.
Firms and their staff could be taxed hundreds of pounds for each computer they use unless they can prove personal use is 'not significant'.
The stealth tax, which could raise billions for the Treasury, is most likely to affect workers who have a company computer, such as a laptop, at home.
But it is feared that it will land companies with a huge amount of extra red tape as they attempt to police the use of all their computers to ensure that personal use is kept to a minimum.
Taxation experts and opposition MPs last night called for urgent clarification on the measures, which will be debated in the Commons today as part of the Finance Bill. David Reynolds, of the Independent Association of Accountants Information Technology Consultants, said: 'This law could apply to every employee who uses a computer who is allowed personal use. The onus will be on employers to show that their staff are not using them personally.'
The change in the law results from the scrapping of the Home Computing Initiative, which was introduced in 1999 to allow employers to provide cheap computers to employees for their own personal use to the value of no more than £2,500.
The new law will apply to computers bought by companies after April 6, 2006.
On a computer costing £2,000, an employee paying higher-rate tax would have to pay £160 extra each year while the employer would have to pay an extra £51.20.
Advice from HM Revenue and Customs seems to show that employers will have to produce a clear policy against employees using company computers for their own private use, which would have to be enforced by 'reasonable checks'. The main stumbling block is over the definition of 'not significant' personal-use. Critics argue it will be virtually-impossible to enforce.