Whats wrong with a supermarket bill?

[Hiram King Of Tyre]

I use a motorhome as both a local office and overnight accomodation near to my client. My accountant advises having an evening meal in a pub or resturant though and claim it on expenses. It would normally suit be better though if I just went to the supermarket and prepared my own dinner, this way I can much better control my diet. The accountant advises against it though saying that it may be difficult to establish that I'm the only beneficiary. Is that really an issue if I keep receipts and generally spend less than £10?

[Moscow Mule]

Is that really an issue if I keep receipts and generally spend less than £10?

Only an investigation will tell you that for sure!

I'd say you'd be ok, so long as you only buy enough for yourself and that is properly itemised on the supermarket bill, but then I don't work for HMRC...

[ASB]

I use a motorhome as both a local office and overnight accomodation near to my client. My accountant advises having an evening meal in a pub or resturant though and claim it on expenses. It would normally suit be better though if I just went to the supermarket and prepared my own dinner, this way I can much better control my diet. The accountant advises against it though saying that it may be difficult to establish that I'm the only beneficiary. Is that really an issue if I keep receipts and generally spend less than £10?

Personally I never had a problem with this with either my accountants or HMIT. However I guess your accountant is correct in that it could be challenged.

Perhaps you could keep some evidence of you preparing each item and physically consuming it yourself to demonstrate no benefit to anybody else. Perhaps you should buy a high def digital camcorder and claim it on expenses specifically for this purpose.

Not worrying about it would be my advice. Tell him to put it through unless they are really anti it - in which case don't. Ultimately whatever happens in the investigation it's your problem anyway.

Also look at it a different way. If you spend 4 x meals etc in local pub/restaurant you are going to be spending 80 quid or so - gross of tax.

The spending on doing it your preferred way is considerably less than that, irrespective of whether it ends up being out of gross income or seen as a BIK.

[Advocate]

I use a motorhome as both a local office and overnight accomodation near to my client, whose drive I'm currently tarmacing. My accountant advises having an evening meal in a pub or resturant though and claim it on expenses. It would normally suit be better though if I just went to the supermarket and bought special brew. The accountant advises against it though saying that it may be difficult to establish that I'm the only beneficiary. Is that really an issue if I keep receipts and generally spend less than £2?

Bloody pikeys...

[Hiram King Of Tyre]

The main issue is that I can prepare something healthy myself. It's not really a money issue

[Moscow Mule]

The main issue is that I can prepare something healthy myself. It's not really a money issue

It is in that the BIK will be small so you shouldn't stress over it too much...

[lambrini_socialist]

my suggestion: each day that you work way from home and eat food from the supermarket, wrap your resulting bowel movement in a copy of the day's newspaper (for date validation) and send it to HMRC along with the supermarket receipt so they can do a full dietary analysis of your leavings and confirm that you ate what you said you ate while away on company business.

[Archangel]

I use a motorhome as both a local office and overnight accomodation near to my client. My accountant advises having an evening meal in a pub or resturant though and claim it on expenses. It would normally suit be better though if I just went to the supermarket and prepared my own dinner, this way I can much better control my diet. The accountant advises against it though saying that it may be difficult to establish that I'm the only beneficiary. Is that really an issue if I keep receipts and generally spend less than £10?

If you were living at home and buying food from the supermarket you couldn't claim for it, so why claim whilst in your caravan?

Sounds like tax dodging to me.

[NotAllThere]

If you were living at home and having a meal at a pub, then you couldn't claim that either.

So what's your point?

[Archangel]

If you were living at home and having a meal at a pub, then you couldn't claim that either.

So what's your point?

The point is that if you have to eat out because you are working away from home your increased cost is allowable against tax. Buying the same food from the supermarket as you would at home incurs no extra cost.