Reply to: Expenses Abroad - Laundry

[speling bee]

I know what you mean but if you're on a decent rate, that's literally 1 minute of your time.

£390 per hour on an 18 to 20 hour day. I'm on the wrong line of work.

[Sockpuppet]

I am sure you could make a deal with one of the East European cleaning ladies

Insert inappropriate joke.

[Brussels Slumdog]

laundrettes

Hello fellow working-weekenders.

I'm regularly in random countries and often have to use hotel laundry services. These are expensive, but as with most capital cities laundrettes are a thing of the past.

There are still 100s of Laundrettes in Brussels. Maybe you just don't know the East European language word for Laundrette.
When I worked in South Africa I made a private deal with one of the hotel staff to do my washing at half the price that the hotel charged. She made more washing my clothes than her daily hotel pay. I am sure you could make a deal with one of the East European cleaning ladies

[d000hg]

I'm from a modest background, so feel affronted when I'm offered the bargain price of £6.50 to wash some boxers... Living the dream. Literally, going by such a rip-off...

I know what you mean but if you're on a decent rate, that's literally 1 minute of your time.

[Wanderer]

Try Amsterdam, Paris central business district or Berlin, near offices, on the rates provided in the HMRC pdf link - for a busy person those are just simply not viable.

The scale rate allowances for the hotel room seem reasonable to me:

Amsterdam: €141
Paris: €192
Berlin: €160

If you can't get somewhere in the city centre for that much then all these cities have excellent transport systems so it's not difficult to jump on a train so you don't have to be right next door to where you work.

I'm from a modest background, so feel affronted when I'm offered the bargain price of £6.50 to wash some boxers... Living the dream. Literally, going by such a rip-off...

Yeah, I'd agree with that.

All that aside though, there are two scenarios:

1. The client is paying so check out what they are willing to pay for and send them the bill. Who cares how much it costs them.

2. I'm paying so I'll find diggs a little bit out of the way with an easy commute into the office - it ain't hard to look up train timetables etc these days. If I'm there for < 7 days then I'll take enough stuff for the week. If it's more than 7 days then I've got time to find a laundromat.

[dundeedude]

It's rather funny the idea of a high-end expert contractor earning big bucks, scrubbing their gussets in a 5* hotel.

I'm from a modest background, so feel affronted when I'm offered the bargain price of £6.50 to wash some boxers... Living the dream. Literally, going by such a rip-off...

[d000hg]

It's rather funny the idea of a high-end expert contractor earning big bucks, scrubbing their gussets in a 5* hotel.

[captainham]

End result is: all the contractors I spoke to have said they claim whatever they spend, but they only spend on hotels and food, as they are busy working whilst abroad. I suspect, if honest, a lot of people really do this too, and do not trawl through the PDF mentioned to calculate how much they have overspent compared to the arbitrary limits that do not take into account certain working factors.

As I understand it, you shouldn't get too hung up on the scale rate PDF that was linked to earlier. You have two options with expenses:

1. Claim the receipted amount, whatever that is.
2. Claim the scale rate as per the HMRC PDF.

The scale rate tends to be more generous than your typical receipted amount, so you can profit more from this if you travel regularly (as in, take more money out of the LtdCo which doesn't impact your personal allowances, and slightly reduces your CT further).

If you claim the receipted amount, and this works out more than the scale rate, then you shouldn't worry about that as that it was incurred wholly and exclusively for business; if you can justify it then you're fine. In your case it sounds like you can justify it, but equally you'd have a hard time justifying why you rented the penthouse suite of a top Parisian hotel, for example.

With a lot of this, a little common sense goes along way, so as long as you avoid taking the blatant pee, you're halfway there already.

[Jessica@WhiteFieldTax]

Theres the strict letter of the rules - which are sometimes ambiguous - and pragmatism. Quite often more can be got through pragmatically, either by default - its never picked up - or because if HMRC do inspect they overlook / miss / don't apply rules / etc.

This is an area where your accountant needs to guide you, and your accountant needs to be comfortable with what you are doing, so that they can defend the position if necessary.

In practice, even if it does get picked up penalties are unlikely - thats not to say they won't occur, but more often than not, if you are sensible they don't.

50 Shades of Grey I'm afraid (thats a reference to expenses, not hotel rooms)

[dundeedude]

10 contractors doing the wrong thing doesn't make it the right thing. I can easily find 10 contractors who dont know what IR35 is so should I ignore it? Absolutely not.

What's IR35?

Is it the new VW Golf?


















NB: Just winding you up Point taken...

[northernladuk]

10 contractors doing the wrong thing doesn't make it the right thing. I can easily find 10 contractors who dont know what IR35 is so should I ignore it? Absolutely not.

[dundeedude]

Just because the client is willing the pay the expense doesn't mean its allowable from your Ltd to yourself.

Hi everybody,

thanks very much for the input. Apologies for originally posting in 'General', I see now it was inappropriate.

I've resorted to hand-washing - the only issue being that I've been out of the hotel room so much that I didn't have time to spend washing clothes in the sink, as I was so tired.

I can't use soap, due to having a fussy coat of skin. Resorted to some friendly smell-free shower gel.

It seems obvious to me from reading some forum posts that people claim whatever they can whilst abroad, such as hotel, dinner and the usual items, then claim it back from their Ltd Co. In many cases the client will also pay for the items.

I've just spoken to 10 contractors who I know do significant work abroad, same as myself, and none of them were aware of a per-country/city limit on claiming!

Take this trip, as an example. Everything is 'last minute', due to the type of sector I work in. Hotels need booked at the last minute. Being near to the office means staying at one of the larger brands, which happen to be four or five star - standard rooms have disappeared when you book things last minute.

Result: I personally end up in expensive rooms, with room-service ordered regularly, due to unsociable and long working hours.

Am I then expected to not claim for these high costs to my Limited, when I'm paying on a personal credit-card?

Generic £10 per day subsistence abroad is also a good laugh. The UK, outside London, is very very cheap. Try Amsterdam, Paris central business district or Berlin, near offices, on the rates provided in the HMRC pdf link - for a busy person those are just simply not viable. I bill per hour, so can easily show that I have indeed worked, for example, 18 hours in a day, then 20 hours the next day, just to get a project finished. If I worked 9 hours per day I could definitely find time to conform to the HMRC figures published in that link.

End result is: all the contractors I spoke to have said they claim whatever they spend, but they only spend on hotels and food, as they are busy working whilst abroad. I suspect, if honest, a lot of people really do this too, and do not trawl through the PDF mentioned to calculate how much they have overspent compared to the arbitrary limits that do not take into account certain working factors.

[Sockpuppet]

Everyone here is presuming that your LTD is paying the expenses. If the client is willing to pay the expenses for you then then go for it and fill your boots my son!

Just because the client is willing the pay the expense doesn't mean its allowable from your Ltd to yourself.

[Wanderer]

I should add that the client is happy to pay such expenses.

Everyone here is presuming that your LTD is paying the expenses. If the client is willing to pay the expenses for you then then go for it and fill your boots my son!

Also ask your accountant about claiming a flat amount for scale rate expenses which could be substantial if you spend a lot of time abroad...

[Jessica@WhiteFieldTax]

In addition to this you can claim an overnight allowance of £10 a night which you need to claim daily for the full length of your stay otherwise you can't claim it at all. This overnight allowance is for incidental expenses like your laundry.

Yes, thats the route for laundry costs.