Business Mobile or Personal Mobile

[BillHicksRIP]

If you're working under your own ltd co is there any benefit in getting a business mobile deal as opposed to having a personal mobile and claiming it back? The only difference I can see with business accounts us that they cost more.

[Tomo1971]

I have a mobile through Voda as a business connection (albeit in my personal name, I wasnt a LTD at the time of connection).

I found it a better deal compared to a similar prices consumer tariff, in that i got unlimited landline calls and insurance was £3 instead of £6. I also got unlimited SMS too, although that offer comes and go's on new connections.

Steve

[northernladuk]

I have a mobile through Voda as a business connection (albeit in my personal name, I wasnt a LTD at the time of connection

in that case you can onlty claim business calls and not personal ones. doesnt matter what your situation when you took the contract out you can change the name to your limited and your co's bank anytime so you can claim the whole thing.

[jpdw]

Working for my last permie role with a UK based Ltd I was in a similar position (before going contracting via my own Ltd 6 months ago). The company was too small to want to "run" company mobiles, so all 6 of us took out mobiles individually in our own names for which the company was happy to reimburse in full - the logic was that by us each selecting a suitably sized tariff we would mostly keep within the inclusive minutes and therefore the company would save costs compared to a minimum monthly rental + lots of charged calls.

When it came round to P11D time, the full reimbursed amount was included as a BIK and therefore becoming taxable.

In my case, I always had (and still do) a "personal" mobile/number which I've had for around 15 years and always paid personally. So I certainly wasn't happy at the idea of paying IR on my "company" mobile.

Whilst doing my SA return I called HMRC and after getting the standard advice that it was liable from the first line, got passed through to a "technical specialist". After explaining the situation he advised it still had to stay as a BIK but that the same value could be recorded as a cost of employment (or whatever the box is). The net effect was to cancel out the BIK value.

Not sure but in my case having the two mobiles and a relatively clean distinction between usage as well as working for a very small UK company (sales office for a foreign manufacturer) may have been the significant factor.

[SueEllen]

If you're working under your own ltd co is there any benefit in getting a business mobile deal as opposed to having a personal mobile and claiming it back? The only difference I can see with business accounts us that they cost more.

Depends on the operator.

O2 and T-Mobile definitely let you have the same tariff whether you are a personal or business customer. Though their business packages for the same price tend to be better i.e. more minutes, texts.

However if you are business customer companies tend to treat you better as they realise if you grow they can grow to.

The main problem with having a personal account is that you can only claim for business calls. As all operators give you free minutes if your business calls use all your free minutes then you have to pay for your personal calls yourself. Unless you do what Northernlad did which is hard work.

[Fred Bloggs]

I can recommend O2's business deals. Currently I'm getting 500 minutes, 500 texts, unlimited calls to 10 favourite numbers (mobile or landline) and 512 Mb of data all shared between 2 phones for £15 per month + VAT. Not bad. Some months, I don't even use any of the 500 minutes, all the calls being to "favourite numbers". The best offers come and go very quickly so you need to be quick to get the best deals on O2's website.

[Tomo1971]

in that case you can onlty claim business calls and not personal ones. doesnt matter what your situation when you took the contract out you can change the name to your limited and your co's bank anytime so you can claim the whole thing.

Erm, ta for that but was just trying to point out that some business deals can be better than consumer deals and that you sometimes dont have to prove your a business to get them. I just happen to walk into a Voda store with a HiViz jacket on and the sales guy asked if I use the phone for business and showed me that the deals are cheaper.

Steve

[escapeUK]

When I looked into it, the business contracts were more expensive than the amount of tax Id save by getting the company to pay for it.