The UK Blackberry Tax

Link: Message from the taxman: don’t send personal e-mails on your CrackBerry – Britain – Times Online

THEY are the hand-held devices so addictive that they are known as ‘CrackBerries”. The palm-sized mobile phone with e-mail and internet access allows professional users never to feel out of touch.

Now the taxman is about to dampen their ardour: anyone who sends too many personal e-mails on a work BlackBerry could face a bill of hundreds of pounds, under new rules governing work benefits.

‘Anything designed to be used by being connected to or inserted into a computer” will also now be liable for tax, including printers, scanners, modems and even MP3 players, according to Revenue & Customs BlackBerries and other ‘personal digital assistants” (PDAs) had been exempt from tax because they were used mainly as mobile telephones, but their increasing sophistication has brought them into the taxman’s orbit.

This looks like one of those balloons the Government floats now and again to see how people react. Badly, in this case.