Jenbel

Which always makes it a little bit odd that civil servants are able to claim per diems. OTOH, since those per diems are agreed by HMRC, they are not exactly bounteously high - it's pretty difficult to live the high life on them - McDonalds and Little Chef more like!

DavidJBell

I believe that the price of the seat offered to crew is at the "marginal cost" of flying that seat empty, so therefore there is no benefit to either the airline nor the crew person, hence no tax is payable.

8420PR

The court case has nothing to do with the staff travel "issue" - it is simply an appeal to the judgement earlier this year that the changes imposed by BA last November were non-contractual. I doubt that UNITE will win - the whole argument is that cabin crew are now:
There are so many holes in this argument, all discussed here before...

By the way, Lufthansa must pay tax to the German Government on all award tickets issued to German residents, as the travel is viewed as a benefit in kind from employment related travel.

Roger

Indeed. And you have explained why. Government is in control and makes the per diems available at a realistic (?) rate knowing that they are unlikely to be abused.

There is a kind of per diem allowed to industry IIRC. Isn't there a non-taxable �10 per day which is supposed to cover a phone call home and perhaps a newspaper when away = when abroad? We didn't bother with this as we weren't spending �10 or whatever the limit was and got reimbursed at cost anyway.

Roger

Shhh!

HMRC has considered similar action and rejected it so far. I don't know if there are many other administrations that charge tax.

In any case, how would you differentiate miles earnt with supermarket shopping, credit cards and the like, which are most unlikely to be a benefit in kind?

No5

LGW has been working with less crew on all aircraft types since Single Fleet was created in 2005 or whenever it was introduced. BASSA, and some crew member at LHR, claim they can do it because LGW is a leisure base with less demanding passengers. LHR is a base with a "business" client�le. Duncan Holley also said on BBC Radio 5 Live that LGW is a different case, which gives you an idea of what they really think of LGW.

BASSA made Single Fleet happened. Why? BA needed to save money and to introduce a new fleet at LGW would mean that LHR would remain untouched. Speak to some of our colleagues who were previously based at our regional bases (BFS, MAN and GLA). Some of them will happily give their honest opinion of BASSA and how much they "fought" for their bases to remain open.
BASSA have played all their cards. There are no other bases to change or close down to save money. It has come to LHR.

Unfortunately, BASSA could not care less about LGW. Some crew at LHR are even saying that LGW should be removed from NSP (National Selection Panel) so that crew won't be able to transfer to LHR. Why? Because very few crew at LGW supported the strike.

No5

BA offered VR to 1100 crew last year which made them able to remove a crew member off the aircraft.

Let's say BASSA win the appeal.

What will happen? BA would need to recruit new crew to be able to reinstate the crewing levels, which is a high number. Recruitment will not be onto existing terms and conditions but straight onto New Fleet as BA have made it perfectly clear that any future recruitment will be to this fleet. This will set off New Fleet in an instant.

I'm doubting that BASSA even understand this.

serfty

FWIW, the Australian Government permit per diem's based on an employee's Salary
(3 Bands).

Just as an example, here is what can be paid daily to an employee working in the UK depending upon their base salary (converted to to GBP at today's xe.com cross rate) for the 2009/2010 financial year:At these levels or below, if paid as an allowance, no substantiation is required although "the expense claimed must have been incurred". This does not include accommodation cost which must be substantiated if claimed.

reference: http://law.ato.gov.au/atolaw/view.ht.../NAT/ATO/00001

Roger

Interesting, serfty!

Some of us may look enviously at an allowance of �130-�210 a day for meals and incidentals. As for me, I think I'd find it difficult to put in a substantiated claim for such an amount every day, even though I'm used to retaining every single slip of paper witnessing expenditure ...

Dave Noble

Just because the ATO allows that amount per day, does not mean that this is what all companies will pay for per diems of course. The rates do look higher than they might often, due to the very favourable exchange rate from AUD-GBP at the moment. GBP160 today would often have onl been around GBP110 when the AUD isnt so strong and with the worst ROE I have seen around $83

Per diems do make it a lot simpler for both sides

Roger

Good point, I'd overlooked that these were maxima.Yes, and I wish that HMRC would look more favourably on them. After all, they accept the principle for Government employees.

globalste

Slide 13 from investors day below says it all - cabin crew cost per flying hour comparing LHR with LGW. Cost is nearly double for LHR per hour and has risen by over 25% since 1997.

http://media.corporate-ir.net/media_...sentations.pdf