Senior IT workers in British banks are to be caught by the Government’s controversial bonus tax, it emerged yesterday as HM Revenue & Customs began briefing bankers. HMRC officials made clear that the tax would be levied on bonuses paid not only to bankers and financiers but also to workers in banks directly supporting bankers.

That would certainly affect senior IT workers in banks, it was made clear, but there was confusion as to whether it would extend to other functions such as marketing, legal, property services and accounting. HMRC emphasised that bonuses to bank employees doing non-banking work such as fund management and insurance would not attract the new tax.

HMRC officials visited the British Bankers’ Association yesterday to try to explain the workings of the tax — a 50 per cent one-off levy on employers paying bonuses in excess of £25,000. The Chancellor expects to raise £550 million from the tax. Angela Knight, the BBA chief executive, said: “In some areas we are clearer now, in others we are awaiting clarification.”

HMRC seems to be trying to set potential liability for the tax on the type of authorisation that a City worker is given by the Financial Services Authority. Permission to work in the City is given according to different authorisation categories.

Official guidelines from HMRC have been drafted broadly so that on one interpretation almost any occupation in the City could be seen to be covered. The result has been widespread confusion and anger in banks trying to finalise bonus arrangements as the financial year-end nears. HMRC again declined to give guidance to the media yesterday.

Because of the complexity of bank trading systems, senior City IT workers can be highly paid, with hundreds of thousand of pounds in bonuses in good years, though they earn much less than dealmakers and star traders.

Paris gave details of a bonus tax similar to the British one yesterday with bank bonuses above €27,500 (£24,500) to be hit. However, the scope of the French levy appeared to be narrower with only bank traders affected.

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