Reply to: Travel expenses

[eek]

The answer to your specific question is no - but as well as legitimate travel expenses to the same work location for up to 2 years when operating within IR35 with a ltd company, you can still claim 5% of turnover as an allowable cost as well as accommodation if its an incremental cost, insurance costs, some subs, & pension contributions.

I emphasis the bit in bold. They have been a couple of occasions when I've considered a short term 3 month IR35 hit contract as I could top up the pension and use some of the companies spare cash. If I did literally every penny of the contract would go straight into my pension just so I could be very smug if someone checked.

[Forbes Young]

Hi

If I start a new 6 month contract (assuming caught by IR35 grrrrrr!!!!) can I claim all travel expenses to and from my home to the office?

This will be by train costing about £450 per month.

However by car it's a 100 mile round trip - so if I drove I could claim 100 * 45p = £45 per day, approx £1000 per month (I'd hit the 10000 miles 45p allowance in 6 months).

Question is - could I travel by train but claim I was travelling by car??

The answer to your specific question is no - but as well as legitimate travel expenses to the same work location for up to 2 years when operating within IR35 with a ltd company, you can still claim 5% of turnover as an allowable cost as well as accommodation if its an incremental cost, insurance costs, some subs, & pension contributions.

[Jessica@WhiteFieldTax]

Sorry to play devil's advocate here but I remember participating in a PsychoCandy thread whereby if you're a limited company you don't need to keep fuel receipts as proof (even though I still do) just a log of the journey and mileage.

You don't have to keep the receipts for Income Tax/Corporation Tax/NI.

You do for VAT, or more correctly enough receipts to cover the vat claimed, even if thats only a quarter of all the receipts.

Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction...

[TheCyclingProgrammer]

Hi

If I start a new 6 month contract (assuming caught by IR35 grrrrrr!!!!) can I claim all travel expenses to and from my home to the office?

This will be by train costing about £450 per month.

However by car it's a 100 mile round trip - so if I drove I could claim 100 * 45p = £45 per day, approx £1000 per month (I'd hit the 10000 miles 45p allowance in 6 months).

Question is - could I travel by train but claim I was travelling by car??

Of course you could. You'll probably get away with it too as mileage claims are quite easy to fake. Whether that makes it right, or that you should commit tax fraud is down to your own conscience.

[barrydidit]

I like the cut of his gib.

Better would be to get your train ticket, charge mileage for Monday / Friday and then put in fake hotel receipts for the rest of the week. That would get you to at least 15k

jib

[sal]

Certainly you can, it's arguably criminal fraud of course and you wouldn't have a leg to stand on if investigated by HMRC. If they dug up this post they could prove pre-meditation so an "I made a mistake" defence would go nowhere.

Feel free to do it and post how you're treated in Her Majesties Home for the Criminally Stupid.

^ This

[The Spartan]

I did both, but no one every looked at the receipts, Hector accepted the mileage log & odometer readings.

Thanks for clarifying Zeity

My point is really speaking there is no way to prove the mileage is genuine or not.

[TykeMerc]

^^ This. It's such a moronic question it should really have stayed in General. It's hardly a professional one.

True.

To the OP it's worth using MarillionFan's suggestion of fake Monday-Friday hotel bills but also fake up evening meal bills at around £40 a night and maybe breakfasts too, hell if the client has an airport (or a large carpark) why not also include helicopter and pilot rental in there too.

If you're going to take the p155 you may as well go for it big time rather than pussy foot about.

[JRCT]

Wasn't there a poster recently who phoned the HMRC helpline and asked if this was OK?

That was me. I sometimes drive and sometimes train it and I simply claim mileage everyday because it's easier on the admin. HMRC were fine with this when I explained the full circumstances.

HOWEVER - the difference is about £1.60 a week, if that. And I only do this knowing full well that I'm not making any money out of it on the particularl journey I'm doing.

If my journey changed and the figures stacked up as the OP suggests his does, then I wouldn't do it and I agree with most that it's ridiculous and purely a means to defraud.

[MarillionFan]

^^ This. It's such a moronic question it should really have stayed in General. It's hardly a professional one.

I like the cut of his gib.

Better would be to get your train ticket, charge mileage for Monday / Friday and then put in fake hotel receipts for the rest of the week. That would get you to at least 15k

[northernladuk]

I've got to ask - why would you think that this would be OK???

^^ This. It's such a moronic question it should really have stayed in General. It's hardly a professional one.

[northernladuk]

Or ride a bike. You get to claim back 20p per mile then.

Oh.... But what receipts would NLUK collect then to prove the cycle.

Well I can prove I have a well ridden bike. I have the marriage certificate to prove it!!!

[The Spartan]

Sorry to play devil's advocate here but I remember participating in a PsychoCandy thread whereby if you're a limited company you don't need to keep fuel receipts as proof (even though I still do) just a log of the journey and mileage.

[LisaContractorUmbrella]

Hi

If I start a new 6 month contract (assuming caught by IR35 grrrrrr!!!!) can I claim all travel expenses to and from my home to the office?

This will be by train costing about £450 per month.

However by car it's a 100 mile round trip - so if I drove I could claim 100 * 45p = £45 per day, approx £1000 per month (I'd hit the 10000 miles 45p allowance in 6 months).

Question is - could I travel by train but claim I was travelling by car??

I've got to ask - why would you think that this would be OK???

[MarillionFan]

You should walk it - no expenses then so sorted. Or maybe some sort of roller skate or skateboard.

Welcome to General BTW....

Or ride a bike. You get to claim back 20p per mile then.

Oh.... But what receipts would NLUK collect then to prove the cycle.