Many years ago, when I worked in the City, we had a system whereby each of us was responsible for bringing in one newspaper each (I drew the short straw - the Daily Mail). For a long time the tax man allowed these newspaper costs as a deduction against our income, then he suddenly ruled that the papers were not "wholly, exclusively and necessarily" needed in our occupation and the tax relief ended.

By the same token I wonder whether these recipients of papers at the BBC should be taxed on the value of this "perk". The cost of The Times every day for a year is over £500.

If you didn't need the papers to assist in your job then the taxman would correctly have given that ruling. Many at the BBC do need them, so he won't as they won't be regarded as a "perk".

For the avoidance of doubt any comments in response to a previous post are directed to its ideas and not at any, or all, posters personally.

The point is that my colleagues and I did need the papers to assist in our jobs. But the situation didn't satisfy the "wholly, exclusively and necessarily" criterion, and I believe that the same issue arises with the BBC's provision of free newspapers. To take an obvious example, the BBC's sports staff don't need to know what's happening in the stock market, or the arts, or in the US election, or in North Korea. In fact, I find it hard to believe that any but possibly a tiny majority of BBC employees need access to the whole of a particular newspaper to do their job. That's where my old colleagues and I were caught, and, frankly, I believe that HMRC had a perfectly fair case.

So what do you think they should do? Employ a few extra staff to cut and paste, or photocopy, those sections only relevant to each employee? I suspect the cost would be greater than just supplying the whole paper.

In any case you can often stumble over something interesting and relevant in the oddest of places,

Who knows, maybe the taxman already extracts their pound of flesh from all, or some, of the staff.

For the avoidance of doubt any comments in response to a previous post are directed to its ideas and not at any, or all, posters personally.

An article from Bloomberg today. Quite long but relevant:

[Link]

"Frances Cairncross, a politically neutral economist who led a review into the the U.K.’s news industry, agrees. “The BBC could do an awful lot more to reflect the views of people on the right of center,” she said recently. The director-general wants to widen newsroom diversity, including finding people from white working class backgrounds. But that will take years to have an impact."

Living down here does have some advantages. At least you can see them cry.

Oh dear. You seem determined to ignore the perfectly reasonable point I had made, and your first paragraph is just silly.