Reply to: £2799 graphics card for company PC? Accountants?...

[northernladuk]

I'd love to see this Card running Battlefield 4 Max out

This is just ridiculous. Is that a game play shot or just promotional/cut scene?

[b0redom]

It wouldn't do that well. You'd be better off spending the money on a couple or even 3 high end gaming GPUs like GTX780s and running them in SLI, and it'd still be ~ £1000 cheaper.

[CloudWalker]

I'd love to see this Card running Battlefield 4 Max out

[northernladuk]

My apologies at querying the price of the card. I had missed the post quoted above. Layman's reply: HMRC should accept this as a necessary business expense and the rest should follow. However, surely your accountant can give you a firm answer in a twinkle of an eye!

It isn't for your accountant to say really. You should know your business, know what is justifiable and know what is taking the piss. The accountant can only advise on the information you give him. If you want to pull the wool over his eyes you can easily justify it to him. Why anyone would be liberal with the truth their accountant beats me though.

[Ticktock]

Agreed.

Difficult to take this seriously although I know very little about graphics cards. I am pressed to find a card priced at more than £800 and wonder what the cost/quality of the rest of the kit would be that would do such a £2800 card full justice

In general you are not paying for the hardware as such, you are paying as the hardware will have been certified by various specialist software providers. At this price I'm guessing it's the sort of thing used in workstations. Examples of use: oil exploration modelling, car design, animation studios

[Taita]

But I work programming in the graphics industry doing special effects where many of my clients are film studios producing lots of HD films and I often work from home.

My apologies at querying the price of the card. I had missed the post quoted above. Layman's reply: HMRC should accept this as a necessary business expense and the rest should follow. However, surely your accountant can give you a firm answer in a twinkle of an eye!

[d000hg]

But I work programming in the graphics industry doing special effects where many of my clients are film studios producing lots of HD films and I often work from home.

In which case you're fine

Company can pursue Plan B which requires this sort of hardware - if R&D is done it might even qualify for R&D relief.

Very true, as long as it's for real.

[Taita]

Bearing in mind this is just a GPU I would have thought it would have needed an expensive piece of kit to go in to as well. Most of the reviews talk about supercomputing at this level of GPU...

With no mention of the other kit to go along with this I am having a problem taking this post seriously. I wouldn't have thought the 7 month public sector gig the OP has just finished would have required this level of hardware.

Sitting here waiting to be proven otherwise thought.....

Agreed.

Difficult to take this seriously although I know very little about graphics cards. I am pressed to find a card priced at more than £800 and wonder what the cost/quality of the rest of the kit would be that would do such a £2800 card full justice?

HMRC are quite likely to take notice of £2800 spend on one component but less likely to be suspicious if the price referred to a complete computer, in my opinion.

However, we are then (if HMRC asks) left finding a good reason for needing it in the business. I suppose it is possible if you are a digital/games/film/livestream/simulation developer so maybe I am too cynical.

I would welcome further explanation to satisfy my technical curiousity.

[Wanderer]

so is there a legitimate business requirement?

Simple question: Is it wholly and exclusively for business use?

[northernladuk]

I have £1200 worth of graphics cards in my PC. I use it for rendering.

I wouldn't hesitate to spend £10k if I needed it, it's not HMRC to decide whether I need it or not.

so is there a legitimate business requirement?

Again you have missed the key point.. If that rendering is for your business then yes, if it isn't then no. Pretty simple really...

[dogzilla]

I have £1200 worth of graphics cards in my PC. I use it for rendering.

I wouldn't hesitate to spend £10k if I needed it, it's not HMRC to decide whether I need it or not.

so is there a legitimate business requirement?

[Platypus]

Just say you got it from China, cobble up a bad English Chinese invoice with loads of Chinese writing on it, some huge amount in Chinese currency converted so the only English bit is the money, and if you get inspected show the Inspector any piece of PC junk you have lying around but treat it reverently and love it so much you can't let him even touch it.

That's how I got my Gretsch White Falcon though my Ltd, got an invoice in Vietnamese for a Flux Converter and showed the Inspector a 146gb FC-AL hard disk...

Great wheeze, thanks for the tip!

[jamesbrown]

But then you're quite clearly into a business expense as it's very unlikely one would spend that kind of wonga on a card to play games on. No?

Absolutely, which is what I said to begin with - almost certainly a professional card at that price, not a gaming one - but the OP can clarify of they ever come back....

[b0redom]

But then you're quite clearly into a business expense as it's very unlikely one would spend that kind of wonga on a card to play games on. No?

[jamesbrown]

Having had a quick squiz at Scan, it looks like even a pair of Titans in SLI would 'only' cost ~ £2000. The only thing approaching that sort of cost is a Quadro which is a workstation card and would be rubbish for gaming on.

If you're just wanting the fastest gaming card you can get, you don't need to spend anything like this.

Agreed, but you can spend big money on specialist GPUs for professional applications:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/PNY-Quadro-N...bs_computers_1

Put together a bank of high-end GPUs and you're quickly talking 20k+. These can be used for things like ensemble forecasting (e.g. of weather). Very unlikely to be applicable to an IT contractor though