Finance (No.2) Bill 2014–15 was published just six days after the Budget. A mere three days later that Bill passed through all the relevant parliamentary stages to become the Finance Act 2015. The promised exemption on trivial BIKs got left behind. With Parliament now dissolved one can expect the normal “purdah” between now and the General Election in early May.

Readers should note that as part of the Parliamentary process, Parliament decided not to legislate for the new exemption to income tax for trivial Benefits in Kind (BiKs) announced at Budget 2015 and instead will legislate in a future Finance Bill. This follows on from a Written Ministerial statement to Parliament. This will mean that the income tax exemption will not come into force from 6 April 2015 as previously advised.

However, the other changes to benefits and expenses (the abolition of the £8,500 threshold, collection of income tax on BiKs in real time (payrolling) and the paid and reimbursed expenses exemption) were legislated.

Details of HMRC documents supporting the Budget 2015 announcements can be accessed at Budget 2015: HM Revenue and Customs overview.

As always, the devil is often in the detail. Time and care should be taken to read the detailed legislation. Leontia Doran writes on Budget 2015 in a feature article on here.