Readers' forum: Flying sorcery

For many years my client has employed his wife in his business. At present he pays her the minimum wage but tells me that if someone else was doing the same amount of work he would have to pay them more. I suppose this begs the question of why he isn’t paying his wife more but I didn’t venture that far in the recent interview. Perhaps he is seeking to avoid class 1 National Insurance.

The client has recently told me that his wife would like to take flying lessons and believes that the cost will be about £10 000. His suggestion was that the flying instructor should invoice his business and he would pay this for his wife to have the lessons. This would presumably be treated as a benefit in kind on the wife – perhaps I should add that the business is operated as a sole...