Reply to: Keeping petrol receipts - even though you claim mileage allowance

[Sockpuppet]

I'm doing about £500 worth a month and all I do is write down on my expense spreadsheet
- dates from and to
- total days worked in period
- total amount claimed

So I am extracting approx £6000 for the year, saving approx £1200 in corp tax, not paying my fuel myself out of money I have paid PAYE, NI on, and not eating into my divvies.

It's not much hassle.

On the main question, I'm FRS, and I don't keep receipts either on instruction from my accountant. Even I were keeping them, it wouldn't be much more than chucking them in an evelope.

Don't get me wrong I do keep details of from/to on specific days with notes of what it was for (i.e. interview, meeting client etc) and the mileage for that day. I just can't keep hold of receipts. I lose them too easily/forget to ask for them.

[jmo21]

I don't keep receipts and I do a tulip load of miles. I fill up possibly twice a week at the moment. Its only July and I've already blown through the 10k limit of 45p a mile!

I worked out how much it was worth (not a lot) and how much effort it would take (a fair bit) so didn't claim anything.

I'm doing about £500 worth a month and all I do is write down on my expense spreadsheet
- dates from and to
- total days worked in period
- total amount claimed

So I am extracting approx £6000 for the year, saving approx £1200 in corp tax, not paying my fuel myself out of money I have paid PAYE, NI on, and not eating into my divvies.

It's not much hassle.

On the main question, I'm FRS, and I don't keep receipts either on instruction from my accountant. Even I were keeping them, it wouldn't be much more than chucking them in an evelope.

[Sockpuppet]

I don't keep receipts and I do a tulip load of miles. I fill up possibly twice a week at the moment. Its only July and I've already blown through the 10k limit of 45p a mile!

I worked out how much it was worth (not a lot) and how much effort it would take (a fair bit) so didn't claim anything.

[northernladuk]

Very interesting thread but to be honest it doesn't change my outlook. I will keep asking for my petrol receipts. More often than not they will ask me if I want it so its simple. Same with the argument over keeping receipts for lunch.

I takes no time to get them, I have a big envelope at home I just empty them out in to and job is done. If a few seconds of my time means I can just dump the lot on the inspectors desk and we can move on with the investigation it was time will spent IMO.

[psychocandy]

I agree, no point keeping fuel receipts. Just;
(1) Keep a logbook in your glove-box, and record date, from, to, purpose, and miles travelled;
(2) If the journey is the same for several months, print out the route from Google Maps, and keep for your records;
(3) Have the location of each contract to hand, so any journey can be easily cross-referenced to the contract you were doing at the time;

You really only need to do (1), but if you feel an HMRC inspector might not believe you (for example if you worked a Saturday near Brighton Beach during a mini-summer heatwave) then go for (2) and (3) also.

Yeh. Pretty easy for me. Monday - Friday - drive to client site then drive home.

[Greg@CapitalCity]

Easy

I agree, no point keeping fuel receipts. Just;
(1) Keep a logbook in your glove-box, and record date, from, to, purpose, and miles travelled;
(2) If the journey is the same for several months, print out the route from Google Maps, and keep for your records;
(3) Have the location of each contract to hand, so any journey can be easily cross-referenced to the contract you were doing at the time;

You really only need to do (1), but if you feel an HMRC inspector might not believe you (for example if you worked a Saturday near Brighton Beach during a mini-summer heatwave) then go for (2) and (3) also.

[Wanderer]

Come on guys (n gals) you gotta apply a bit of common and think about the bigger picture. You could make up the mileage for 20 miles a day but they don't care about that. They care about the guy that sticks 20k miles a year and does none.

I agree - they probably aren't going to quibble about a few thousand miles per year. A cursory glance to see that you were actually working on those days and a few questions about where the client sites are and then move on. All trips logged, distances look reasonable, nothing to see here, they will move on to things like the 24 month rule and IR35....

how would they get the figures to clobber businesses with they decide are under paying?

They would look at what a typical (chippie, kebab shop, icecream van, taxi driver) business in that area takes and compare it to the one they are investigating to see if the amounts are roughly ball park. Is the business viable? Does it make a profit or is it all swallowed up in expenses? It's always going to be difficult with cash in hand businesses though.

[BolshieBastard]

I thought the whole idea of reciepts was to prove you are doing the mileage you claim? Without them there is no way at all to confirm what you are claiming? At least if you can show you have spent at least £x when you put y miles in there is some basic correlation. Yes ok you can still fudge it but it stops people working from home and claiming 1000's of miles.

Also you cannot rely on your accountant to tell you what to claim. Yes you SHOULD be able to. I think we all agreed that in a number of threads on this but the defacto standard is you can't. It's your business and it is ultimately up to you to know so can't just sit there and wait for them to mess up I am afraid. I fell foul of this and learnt the hard way just as many other posters have. It is just the way it is.

In this instance, reciepts dont tell or confirm how many miles a car has done, only the amount of fuel purchased.

Different cars in the same engine size bracket ie 2 litre, will do different mpg. Even the same car driven by two different people will return different MPG!

There's absolutely no need to keep fuel reciepts if claiming mileage. All you do is keep a log of every journey as that determines the start \ end mileage and, record the car's corresponding mileometer reading.

The VAT element on fuel can be reclaimed even if on mileage but, if on the FRS, even this is not applicable.

Any accountant who tells you to keep fuel receepts is an ass hole.

[northernladuk]

Saying that even the book keepers don't know which is scarey...

Technical Queries - Fuel receipts versus mileage - MyICB Bookkeepers Forum

Karen75
Member CB.Dip
Practice Licence


3 posts Hi, Thanks all.

Most of my clients are soletraders and I usually total al fuel receipts given and disallow a percentage for private use depending on what I've agreed with the client. ( same percentage as I'd use for their cap allowance adjustents for private use.) I have a new limited company with 1 director who travels quite a distance everyday. I wasn't sure if they could claim tax allowance on the fuel as above as he only keeps receipts he's used for business or whether he should have kept a mileage log but he's given me a years worth of acounts and no mileage log? and am I doing it correctly for sole traders? many thanks

[northernladuk]

Think HMR&C, would use other records to confirm your business mileage, sales invoices, timesheets, mileage clocked on the car, sitting outside your house watching the car moving or not moving, asking the neighbours if the car moves everyday. End clients records showing you logging in to their system, or signing in every day for fire records.

Receipts show money was spent on fuel, but was it for your car?

Just thoughts

Point being, I could stump up a receipt once a week for £85 possibly. Work from home every day, and make up a mileage claim of 20 miles a day to client site.

Come on guys (n gals) you gotta apply a bit of common and think about the bigger picture. You could make up the mileage for 20 miles a day but they don't care about that. They care about the guy that sticks 20k miles a year and does none.

Nice suggestions Robot but seriously, HMRC don't do that. The do reciepts and money and are not there to look at every mile. Having reciepts to cover your miles is a pretty good sanity check to catch guys that are seriously abusing the system. Not a be all and end all but not a bad start.

Anyway, am just talking for talking sake as it is for VAT at the end of the day and not for tracking.

[SueEllen]

Reminds me when they used to sit outside takeaways and count the number of people going in and out (allegedly!)*

*nothing in this comment is true and is simply a hypothetical scenario in my head

There is probably some truth to it.

Unless there was an inspector who was a takeaway owner before joining HMRC.

Otherwise how would they get the figures to clobber businesses with they decide are under paying?

[Craig@Clarity]

sitting outside your house watching the car moving or not moving

Reminds me when they used to sit outside takeaways and count the number of people going in and out (allegedly!)*

*nothing in this comment is true and is simply a hypothetical scenario in my head

[Robot]

I thought the whole idea of reciepts was to prove you are doing the mileage you claim? Without them there is no way at all to confirm what you are claiming? At least if you can show you have spent at least £x when you put y miles in there is some basic correlation. Yes ok you can still fudge it but it stops people working from home and claiming 1000's of miles.

Think HMR&C, would use other records to confirm your business mileage, sales invoices, timesheets, mileage clocked on the car, sitting outside your house watching the car moving or not moving, asking the neighbours if the car moves everyday. End clients records showing you logging in to their system, or signing in every day for fire records.

Receipts show money was spent on fuel, but was it for your car?

Just thoughts

[Craig@Clarity]

Exactly. I dont reclaim any VAT.

If I remember correctly, dont you reclaim an element of VAT from mileage claims if you're not flat rate?

Yes it's a fraction. It's not a huge amount or the normal VAT rate amount. That's why being on the flat rate scheme is usually beneficial if that's all the expenses you have.

[psychocandy]

I thought the whole idea of reciepts was to prove you are doing the mileage you claim? Without them there is no way at all to confirm what you are claiming? At least if you can show you have spent at least £x when you put y miles in there is some basic correlation. Yes ok you can still fudge it but it stops people working from home and claiming 1000's of miles.

Also you cannot rely on your accountant to tell you what to claim. Yes you SHOULD be able to. I think we all agreed that in a number of threads on this but the defacto standard is you can't. It's your business and it is ultimately up to you to know so can't just sit there and wait for them to mess up I am afraid. I fell foul of this and learnt the hard way just as many other posters have. It is just the way it is.

Yeh. But I do a round trip of 18 miles a day. The fact that I might put £85 worth of diesel in my motor proves nothing. I could have gone to Cornwall for the weekend.

Point being, I could stump up a receipt once a week for £85 possibly. Work from home every day, and make up a mileage claim of 20 miles a day to client site.

The receipt proves bugger all cos like I said, its not a company car and I could be driving to Cornwall for a holiday every weekend!!!!

I see what you mean about not relying on your accountant. Like you always say, its your business, your responsibility but since I'd already had this discussion about mileage allowances I fail to understand why the useless bugger hadnt said at the time about keeping receipts.

Also, I fail to see why a credit card statement doesnt provide at least basic proof if the HMRC are that bothered. For instance,

Tesco Petrol £85.

Do they really think I'm going to bother to fiddle 20 miles a day, work from home, never use my car otherwise, but then go and buy £85 worth of crisps, choc, and cat food from tescos petrol station just so it looks like I've bought fuel?