Should firms change the start time for late night taxis to 10pm?

Having recently paid our PSA bill, I was relieved to learn that this week HM Revenue & Customs decided not to abolish the tax relief on late night taxis. HMRC has long felt that this benefit has been abused at law firms, and the it had been threatening to make these changes for some time.

But does this mean we shouldn't look hard at whether law firms could change their stance on late night taxis? How can we reduce the firm’s liability, while still showing a duty of care towards employees to see that they get home safely after working late?

The Revenue has argued that 9pm was too early to use as start time for the exemption to apply - if you were are socially for drinks or dinner, you could still get public transport home at 9pm. It's also been a belief at the Revenue that employees working until 830pm or 845pm are willing to find further small tasks until nine o'clock, if it means they can get a taxi home - and therefore abuse the benefit.

I'm sure we have all seen the same trends when doing the analysis of the data before filing our PSA, such as the same names appearing over and over again and a majority of taxis being taken between 855pm and 910pm. So what's the answer?

When I speak to other accounting and finance managers, the consensus is that increasing the time from 9pm to 10pm is the best option. Moving the time an hour will still provide those who genuinely need to stay late to complete an important task with the benefit of a taxi home, while discouraging those who only have a couple of hours extra work from finding small tasks to fill the time until they can get a taxi home.

I reckon most people would rather make their own way home at 855pm rather than remaining in the office until 10pm just to get a taxi home at the firm's expense.

Some firms have already taken action and increased the time for a late working taxi from 2100 to 2200, which I'm sure has been met with some resistance. But they are still satisfying the firm’s duty of care towards its employees, as well as reducing the firm’s financial liability. Why not your firm?

Is moving the late night taxi cut-off to 10pm the best route to liability/duty nirvana? Tell us in the comments section below