Benefit in Kind tax

[IO540]

Islander2 is right on the money, as far as reality is concerned:

My direct experience and that of others I know is of the Revenue starting with a truly extreme position but being prepared to negotiate down from that. Where they end up is, I believe, very much at the discretion of the individual Inspector (or, at least, it used to be). I saw no evidence to suggest my Inspector was working to quantitative guidelines, but that was quite number of years ago and maybe things have changed

Things have not changed. They still go for the throat, and then might negotiate downwards. I am not an accountant but the story I hear time and time again is that the settlement bears more relation to the proximity of the inspector's retirement, how many points he has accumulated on his bonus scheme, etc than to any facts of the case.

There is a particular difficulty for anybody who is a Controlling Director: he has access to the asset 24/7 by virtue of being such. Having a contract preventing him from having access is a bit silly, even if this is effective with normal employees.

This is obviously a worrying scenario for many groups. I will make sure a more detailed update is posted when I know more. Current indications are that this is a particular inspector being aggressive, rather than an official national policy of going after certain types of asset.

Edit: I did find out the answer to my original question. The AOPA deal applies to groups only i.e. where all flyers own a piece of the asset. This inspector did indicate that the Revenue web page posted earlier applies in such a situation.