Do you claim every possible expense?

[siouxchief]

Hi,

Im starting my first contract soon which is a daily commute into London. I intend on claiming expenses for my accountant, 4K season ticket up to two years so should save a few hundred quid in corporation tax. I probably wont claim much more unless the home office use expense is easy to claim.

I could also possibly claim my train station parking of £5 a day but considering i will work some days from home im beginning to think it would be less hassle not bothering keeping receipts (may need to print out every day online) and expensing this every day for the savings it would bring.

So i just wondered do people in general claim every allowable expense or sometimes is the added effort not worth the reward? Don't mean paper clips and pencils by the way.

Cheers

p.s. Considering the expenses changes potentially coming in i guess im one of those people where it wont bother too much. Wonder what percentage of contractors also have as little expenses as me...

[Crossroads]

If you are WFH once or more a week then check that a season ticket is the cheapest option. If it is, can you also get one for the car park?

Once you are living on a tax efficient salary you will find every few quid back helps.

Not sure why you are claiming them for your accountant though???!!!

[eek]

Firstly if you are not in the office every day it could be cheaper to do individual tickets.

As for typical expenses figures wait as I will be compiling the figures next weekend.

[siouxchief]

Its a bit unpredictable how often and when i will be able to work from home so a season car parking ticket might not be ideal although it would be easier to claim that way i realise what you mean. Think season ticket is yearly too and its a 6 month contract for now...

I guess its mainly the concept of keeping car parking receipts for the year amounting to £200 say then you only save 20% of that so £40. Think there is an actual intrinsic value to me of £40 to not claim the expense every day in this case imho as would be a pain.

Think i was just wondering what others minimum gain would need to be received to go to the trouble of daily expense paperwork.

Cheers

[siouxchief]

Looking forward to it eek. Just spotted the survey.

[TheCoconutDog]

How hard can it be to record a claim for £5?!?! £5x4x48=£960/yr, tax free - so yes, I would claim it. It'll take you all of 2 mins to record a week's worth of parking.

[SueEllen]

Claim them.

You can enter them in as a job lot on your expenses per week as long as you have the receipts.

[Contreras]

On point of principle I claim for anything that is genuinely only for business. If it's really an effort to administer then perhaps time to review your bookkeeping methods...

Unless the items are cash only then I pay using company debit card. Endeavour to keep all receipts, but this less critical as the business bank statement is already a record of the expense. (Yes I know the same could be said of personal bank statement but I prefer to not to give Hector an easy excuse to request that.) Doing it this way also means the ledger will not reconcile until all expenses have been accounted for. Whether you see that as a good or a bad thing - YMMV.

[northernladuk]

On point of principle I claim for anything that is genuinely only for business. If it's really an effort to administer then perhaps time to review your bookkeeping methods...

This. I even claim the postage for sending contracts back but am squeaky clean when it comes to slightly questionable items. There is a big difference between pedantic and slack with your accounts.

[NotAllThere]

I used to, but now I can't be bothered for small amounts. I focus on generating more fees - it's more cost effective.