Readers’ forum: Does a benefit-in-kind charge arise on the use of a horse?

My client owns and runs a livery stable. The business operates from some fields on which she has built stables and an office. She receives income from clients who stable their horses there with additional income from some owners for feeding and looking after the horses as well as providing riding lessons.

The client has horses of her own which she keeps at the stables. She employs as an assistant on a part-time basis a woman who lives a couple of miles away. Once the assistant’s employment duties have been finished for the day my client allows her to ride one of her horses for an hour or so.

The assistant has a small paddock adjoining her house and has recently been riding the horse home keeping it there overnight and riding it back to the stables the next morning.

If this was a company car or motorcycle...