Budget - Composite Companies Dead!

[Xtrain]

"When I worked for a management consultancy last year, all their staff were paid to travel from London to Chester and put up in a hotel and able to claim all their outgoings. They did this for the best part of a year. When they went into their London offices they were not able to claim anything. I don't see how this is any different to what I'm currently doing.

Every Friday I work from home where I have a room fully kitted out with everything I need for my business - and a few mondays also depending on meetings etc. Obviously I do not claim anything in my expenses for this working from home (as I don't have any), but do when I work at the client site in London. I also have had to supply my own laptop for a couple of roles and have used it many times since on different client sites. Again in the management consultancy, all their staff were given a laptop - which they took home and were free to use in their own time. Again I fail to see how my laptop purchase through my business is any different to the Management Consultancies purcahse for their staff.

I would suggest you are 1 of the 5% who validly have to work from home, go to different sites etc. In 12 years of contracting I have met very few of contractors like yourself. Most of the ones I have worked with don't work from home, go into the same office everyday and quite often stay for years (I know one guy who has done 20 years at the same site). These are the ones who the IR are trying to catch on both divvies and expenses.

[Parasol_Service]

I have had a chat to Parasol about this already and they state they are unaffected by this. They state you will still be able to claim schedule E expenses as the payment is taxed at source.

I guess the jurys out for a while.

I'm going to wait til after christmas and speak to my tax advisor.

Thanks to SJD for lumping us in with some great comapines there ! NOT

Umbrellas" that fit the MSC definition will have problems with expenses (as per the draft legislation) - Expenses will be allowed on specific models but the days of P4 and the rest selling via expenses are limited. Parasol whilst being viewed as a PAYE Umbrella is about as far away as you can get from the MSC definition and NOT like ContractorUmbrella (as an example) at a detailed level.

Lesley - Parasol