Should I claim my mobile phone ?

[DirtyDog]

I looked into this. In the end, as someone said, because the providers charge more for 'business' tariffs etc it wasn't worth the tax saving. Better just to get a personal tariff and not claim it.

It's worth working it out carefully, and probably comes down to how much you use the phone (and therefore what kind of tariff do you need). I pay £7.50 + VAT a month for my SIM only business tariff, which seemed pretty good to me - certainly better than getting a personal one and porting the number over.

[psychocandy]

It's worth working it out carefully, and probably comes down to how much you use the phone (and therefore what kind of tariff do you need). I pay £7.50 + VAT a month for my SIM only business tariff, which seemed pretty good to me - certainly better than getting a personal one and porting the number over.

I got a personal contract for £25 pm with free samsung galaxy 3. Plus quidco cashback. Free mins and texts as well.

If I'd gone for business it was £40+ a month for less mins and texts so not worth it.

[The Spartan]

I got a personal contract for £25 pm with free samsung galaxy 3. Plus quidco cashback. Free mins and texts as well.

They obviously saw you coming

[TheCyclingProgrammer]

I take a simple approach...handset gets purchased through the company and is treated as a capital purchase.

I pay for my own personal SIM (£15 a month with Three for 1GB internet and more than enough minutes) and pay for it myself without claiming anything (I could technically claim individual business calls with evidence, same as with my landline, but I make so few calls that I don't bother).

When phone upgrade time comes around (2 year cycle), old phone is "retired" and company buys a new one.

Never been quite sure how having more than one handset on the company books (i.e. not fully depreciated and technically still available for use) interacts with the "one handset per employee" rule but I've never really worried about it.

I suppose that if your partner is a director or company secretary, you could just pass the phone on to them anyway? And even if they aren't...who would know?

[TheCyclingProgrammer]

Re: whether or not you need to be on a business tariff or not to claim it's "in the company name", I wouldn't have thought it would matter. If the network is happy to put the invoice in the company name then I would have thought that would be fine.

The important thing, as far as I'm aware, is that the supplier is both aware of the fact that the purchase was made on the company's behalf *and* that they accept that.

[morf]

I take a simple approach...handset gets purchased through the company and is treated as a capital purchase.

I pay for my own personal SIM (£15 a month with Three for 1GB internet and more than enough minutes) and pay for it myself without claiming anything (I could technically claim individual business calls with evidence, same as with my landline, but I make so few calls that I don't bother).

Just as a heads up but the £25 / month One Plan is now available for £18 if you phone and ask for it to be reduced. Might be worth the upgrade to provide unlimited data + tethering as that's what I went with. I do as above.

[northernladuk]

Re: whether or not you need to be on a business tariff or not to claim it's "in the company name", I wouldn't have thought it would matter. If the network is happy to put the invoice in the company name then I would have thought that would be fine.

The important thing, as far as I'm aware, is that the supplier is both aware of the fact that the purchase was made on the company's behalf *and* that they accept that.

Vodafone weren't. They were very pedantic about the company being involved. I seem to remember the best I could get was to have the company name added in to the address field but wouldn't budge on anything else. Personal tariff, personal invoice. To invoice the company I had to switch to business plan. That was a lot of years ago though and I couldn't be arsed so just didn't claim it.

Either way, IMO, for this amount of money, like £6 a month you do it right or you just don't bother. It isn't worth flagging the tax inspectors attention over what is effectively **** all.

[The Spartan]

Just as a heads up but the £25 / month One Plan is now available for £18 if you phone and ask for it to be reduced. Might be worth the upgrade to provide unlimited data + tethering as that's what I went with. I do as above.

That's what have and though it sounds great the signal in West London is beyond horrendous, in some places I get no 3G.

[TheCyclingProgrammer]

Just as a heads up but the £25 / month One Plan is now available for £18 if you phone and ask for it to be reduced. Might be worth the upgrade to provide unlimited data + tethering as that's what I went with. I do as above.

I've considered the One Plan, but I've never exceeded my allowance and tethering has always just worked for me even though officially it's not supposed to.

[morf]

Yup coverage isn't always the best but sometimes I go places and there is better coverage than Vodafone. I hope the 4g rollout with better frequencies will help.