Travel Expenses for Business Development

[Joxer]

Depends on where you are going, and how you justify it.

A return flight to Barbados, 7 nights hotel accomodation and a few cocktails at the beach bar cannot be termed as a business development expense.

The scenario I'm talking about is a weekend trip within Western Europe to meet with a potential business contact to discuss a new contracting opportunity.

In a similar manner to the conference I guess a brief itinerary for the trip (e.g. business contacts met, potential future roles discussed etc).

As an aside, would there be any issue with the trip being booked on my personal credit card (as opposed to being paid directly from the business account)?

[northernladuk]

The scenario I'm talking about is a weekend trip within Western Europe to meet with a potential business contact to discuss a new contracting opportunity.

In a similar manner to the conference I guess a brief itinerary for the trip (e.g. business contacts met, potential future roles discussed etc).

As an aside, would there be any issue with the trip being booked on my personal credit card (as opposed to being paid directly from the business account)?

Would a meet with a potential contact for future business be classed as sales not business development? You are after new business not developing extra business? Is the terminology important?

Book it on your card and just expense it back to yourself from your business. Fill expense form in and keep receitps. No worries there if it is claimable.

[Taxless]

OK, so my accountant got back to me:


I think the key consideration here is whether attendence at a conference could be argued to be necessary. It's a hard call. I think it probably isn't. I do think it would a great opportunity, both for networking, information, knowledge, experience, etc. But I think it might be difficult to argue that it is necessary.

Hmmmm, one to consider I think. But I'm kind of erring towards being on the safe side and not going.

Not quite sure where your accountant is coming from on this one.

If the company decides to send you to the main conference in your field, then for it to be able to claim a deduction for CT purposes, the expense must be wholly and exclusively for business purposes.

If you as an employee of the company had decided to incur this, or any other expenses, and wished to claim the expense against your PAYE income, then to qualify for a deduction for PAYE, you would have to show that the expense had been incurred wholly, exclusively and neccessarily in the performance of your employment duties.

Here I think we are dealing with the former case as it is the company that will incur the expense, or reimburse you and they are making the decision, hence the need for paperwork to back this up.

Why else would the company send you to the Conference except to keep up to date, keep abreast of what's coming along etc.?

It would be the same for the proposed meeting with a potential contact for future business. You can call it what you think is most approriate, the question is whether the company is incurring the expense "wholly & exclusively" and if so it is claimable.

The amounts obviously have to be reasonable in proportion to the trip. Within your accounts it will probably be split between travel and subsistence or such like anyway.

[Tanya@SC Lee Accountant Ltd]

This has got me thinking. Let me give you a specific example, I’ll ask my accountant as well, but I’d be interested in your thoughts.

I work in the LMS and e-learning field and the leading e-learning conference is held annually in Las Vegas. It covers what’s coming up in the world of L&D, e-learning, etc, it’s sponsored by Adobe, Citrix, Articulate, etc and there’s talks by leading industry specialists. Whaddaya reckon? An allowable business expense? I reckon so, it’s 100% related to my business. What about flights, can I fly business class? Is that an allowable expense? If the conference is on one day, how many nights would it be reasonable to stay? Staying for just one night might be a bit unreasonable as it’s a long way away, but then staying for a week is taking the piss I’m sure.

FYI, I clearly want to go there to gamble; the conference is merely an excuse to pay via my business account. But it would be a useful conference in all seriousness.

Strictly speaking if part of the flight and hotel are for personal use, you will claim proportional of that as business expenses.
Thanks

Harry Lee

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