Subsitence Claims

[BolshieBastard]

If you're staying away from home or out of the home for more than 12 hours a day (I think), you can legitimately claim a flat rate expense (subsistence?).

I think it used to be about £6 a day, might have increased to around a tenner?

Claiming meals when working away isnt normally allowed as you have to eat at home anyway.

[bertie78]

OK - so some key points here. Firstly, I'm not interested in tax savings. Although it of course adds up, I'm more concerned with the fact that it is £120 a month out of my pocket. Secondly, I'm unclear as to how PerfectStorm's comment would fair with HMRC on the premise that I do not have access to my facilities at home, nor the contents of my family's weekly shop. Might be my novice-ness, but I was of the understanding that it was reasonable because you have no access to your home facilities. I guess I'm struggling with what is undoubtedly HMRC's twisted logic - that if I'm not at home and am away on business, buying uncooked food is a legitimate expense to make sure I don't starve.

So - the long and short of it is - suck it up buttercup??! Basically allow £120/month in my 'pay' and forget about it being paid out of pre-tax revenue. 'bout sums it up??

And NorthenLadUK - thanks for the articles. That dispensation one was a good little read. I'll be following up with my accountant about it.

[bertie78]

If you're staying away from home or out of the home for more than 12 hours a day (I think), you can legitimately claim a flat rate expense (subsistence?).

I think it used to be about £6 a day, might have increased to around a tenner?

Claiming meals when working away isnt normally allowed as you have to eat at home anyway.

Sounds about right - pi**es me off, because the fact you eat at home is irrelevant really - you don't have access to the food you bought at home, because you're away on business. If you ask me, it's because contractors are easy targets and ... {restraint}

Cheers guys!

[Boo]

Travel expenses: general: accommodation and subsistence: subsistence costs that are not attributable to the travel: examples

An employee who has to make a business journey takes a packed lunch that he has prepared from items purchased as part of his weekly supermarket shop. The cost of the packed lunch (even if it could be precisely identified) is not an expense incurred in the course of the journey and so is not attributable to the travel for the purpose of Sections 337 and 338.

I'd imagine the same argument could be made for preparing evening meals.

No, the same argument cannot be made for the cost of preparing evening meals provided that cost is incurred during the stay away on business.

Boo

[Boo]

Claiming meals when working away isnt normally allowed as you have to eat at home anyway.

This is not correct and the advice from HMRC clearly states that the fact that a proportion of the cost of the evening meal would have been incurred anyway does not matter and need not be taken into account in the expense claim.

Boo

[ASB]

OK - so some key points here. Firstly, I'm not interested in tax savings. Although it of course adds up, I'm more concerned with the fact that it is £120 a month out of my pocket. Secondly, I'm unclear as to how PerfectStorm's comment would fair with HMRC on the premise that I do not have access to my facilities at home, nor the contents of my family's weekly shop. Might be my novice-ness, but I was of the understanding that it was reasonable because you have no access to your home facilities. I guess I'm struggling with what is undoubtedly HMRC's twisted logic - that if I'm not at home and am away on business, buying uncooked food is a legitimate expense to make sure I don't starve.

So - the long and short of it is - suck it up buttercup??! Basically allow £120/month in my 'pay' and forget about it being paid out of pre-tax revenue. 'bout sums it up??

And NorthenLadUK - thanks for the articles. That dispensation one was a good little read. I'll be following up with my accountant about it.

The difference is what is relevant, not the actual cost. I linked to the scale rates, you can peruse them and see how they fit with your attitude and your position.

You can starve yourself. You eat to live. So general food is not claimable (as such, but consider the scale rate points). In effect your position is that you spend 30 quid on groceries to live. So broadly your at home shop has gone down by 30 quid. A meal is different to normal day to day and allowable as part of the travel.

There is case law in the area, one dating back from a long time ago which set the original precedents.

A particularly warped example might be finishing work extremely late. All restaurants/room service and the local kebab van are all closed. But the 24 hr mini market is open. Buy some groceries and make a meal. Which side of the line is that then on? It's normal expenditure to exist, but only happened because of the work.

in my experience the taxman in investigation is going to be OK if the actual spend is reasonable and less than it would otherwise have been on meals etc. So, personally, I'd just claim it and justify it later if need be, secure in the knowledge that I might fail.

[bertie78]

No, the same argument cannot be made for the cost of preparing evening meals provided that cost is incurred during the stay away on business.

Boo

That's what I was originally thinking. Because the person in the examples is either staying away from home voluntarily - i.e. he has the opportunity to go home, but chooses not to. OR he is at home when technically starting his working day. I totally agree you couldn't realistically apportion the cost of his lunch from his weekly shop. I think no matter how I view this though, I'm arguing a losing case! Unless anyone else here does something similar? I guess my end aim is for these meals not to come out of my 'pay'. I know I'd potentially save tax if the company paid them as expenses, but that isn't my primary aim. Also, I don't want the swines to BiK tax me for staying alive!!!!!!

[TykeMerc]

OK - so some key points here. Firstly, I'm not interested in tax savings. Although it of course adds up, I'm more concerned with the fact that it is £120 a month out of my pocket. Secondly, I'm unclear as to how PerfectStorm's comment would fair with HMRC on the premise that I do not have access to my facilities at home, nor the contents of my family's weekly shop. Might be my novice-ness, but I was of the understanding that it was reasonable because you have no access to your home facilities. I guess I'm struggling with what is undoubtedly HMRC's twisted logic - that if I'm not at home and am away on business, buying uncooked food is a legitimate expense to make sure I don't starve.

So - the long and short of it is - suck it up buttercup??! Basically allow £120/month in my 'pay' and forget about it being paid out of pre-tax revenue. 'bout sums it up??

And NorthenLadUK - thanks for the articles. That dispensation one was a good little read. I'll be following up with my accountant about it.

It's entirely your own call and your own risk of course. It's obvious you just want to hear the positive answers however.

That being said the arguments I've bolded are complete tripe, everywhere I've rented be it flats or house shares for more than the last decade have had perfectly adequate cooking facilities, I do grocery shopping and feed myself, just like at home.
If I eat out then I expense it and as most of the places I've worked at recently have on site food facilities I expense the receipted cost of food (if I remember to get a receipt), food I prepare at my lodgings I do NOT expense.

As I said entirely your own call, but since the arguments don't stand up to a cursory pass through CUK forums how do you think a cynical HMRC inspector whose sole aim in life is to catch you out is going to view them?

Yes there is a generally accepted overnight subsistence for incidentals which my accountants recommend expensing, that's £5 a day when I stay overnight.

[ASB]

And for a positive outcome:-

Contractor Doctor: Can I claim for packed lunches or do I have to eat out?

The practitioner in question makes their case for how it may be claimable.

[TheCyclingProgrammer]

To answer a few of your other questions:

* Travel and subsistence are employee expenses, not company expenses. Therefore the rules and reporting requirements generally stay the same whether you pay and reimburse yourself or put it on the company card. There are some exceptions to this but business travel and subsistence is not one of them.

* Whether or not you claim tax relief on these expenses, if you expense them to YourCo they need to be declared on your P11D unless you have a reporting dispensation, which in turns you have to report them as expense payments on your tax return. Whether you can then offset these costs by claiming them as business expenses depends but as others have said I don't think the cost of meals made at home and groceries would count, even if you're staying away.

* There is a flat rate for overnight stays for sundry expenses. I think it's £5 or £10 a night. This isn't the same as scale rate payments for subsistence, which requires a dispensation. These are normally used by umbrellas, I don't know how likely it is that HMRC would approve them for a small company.

* A lot of this is likely to change next year, including what is and isn't allowable and the dispensations/P11D routine.