Legitimate expense for Offshore Engineers?

[northernladuk]

I was thinking that since it has a chronograph (stopwatch) built into it, and a stopwatch is pretty much essential offshore, for example for timing pipelay welding passes, then it should count as the sort of thing someone could possibly buy solely for business use.

The fact that someone might spend almost £1500 on a stopwatch is purely a matter of how they run their business.

The clue is in the 'wholly and exclusively' line. Will let you work the rest out.

EDIT : Saying that at the end of the day it is up to your tolerance of risk and how happy you can be by convincing yourself it is ok. The likely hood of you getting investigated is slim to nil so you can put what you want in I guess. Problem will come when you get investigated and a £1500 watch will stick out a mile.

[Lorne]

Thanks Guys. Along with a little more research then provided contractors who buy the chornograph only use it wholly and exclusively in the course of their business it is actually a legitimate business expense. Granted nearly £1500 for a chronograph is a lot to pay, but then how you run your business is entirely up to you.

Thanks again

Lorne

[northernladuk]

Thanks Guys. Along with a little more research then provided contractors who buy the chornograph only use it wholly and exclusively in the course of their business it is actually a legitimate business expense. Granted nearly £1500 for a chronograph is a lot to pay, but then how you run your business is entirely up to you.

Thanks again

Lorne

Surely then if you use it as a watch out of work hours it would incur BIK?

[Boo]

That's as nice a new watch as I've seen in a long time. Very nice, indeed.

Not a valid business expense though.

It could be but it would depend on having a feature that makes it "wholly, necessarily and exclusively" needed for business purposes. If someone buys it because it is required for business purposes then their incidental use of the watch outside business hours does not affect the rationale for buying it and so it would still be an allowable expense. Eg, someone who works Saturday mornings (only) on a building site is allowed to buy steel capped work boots as an expense even if they wear them to kick heads in every other day of the week.

So the question the OP has to answer in order to decide whether it is an allowable business expense is "what makes this watch necessary to the business purchasing it ?"
Reading the posted review left me without an answer to that question...

Boo

[Boo]

I recall once a painter bought an industrial washing machine for his overalls - a normal washing machine wouldn't do the job. When inspected he was asked "do you use it for personal stuff?". "No - just for the overalls". "Good" says the inspector "because if you had it wouldn't have been allowable".

The tax inspector is/was wrong to say that. Incidental use is allowed, and whether use is incidental or not is not determined by what proportion of the use is personal, but whether or not the business use is a requirement. Details are somewhere on the HMRC website but icbfa to look for it.

Boo

[northernladuk]

I recall once a painter bought an industrial washing machine for his overalls - a normal washing machine wouldn't do the job. When inspected he was asked "do you use it for personal stuff?". "No - just for the overalls". "Good" says the inspector "because if you had it wouldn't have been allowable".

But he didn't walk around after work with it on his wrist.