Subsistance - The Book-keepers Forum (UK)

MichaelWGroves · Senior Member

Subsistance

FoxAccountancyServices · Expert

Hi Michael

How far away is your rental house from where you live?

Yes you can claim 45p a mile (up to 10K miles, 25p thereafter)

I wouldn't see an issue with claiming a jar of coffee, sugar and a couple bottles of milk, it would be peanuts, but I would be careful about meals etc.

MichaelWGroves · Senior Member

Thanks for your response, the flat in question is a 30 mile round trip, I can't see me ever going over 10k miles a year.
Is there a generally accepted amount for petty disbursements in the same way for Homeworkers allowance?

Thanks
Michael

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

For a rental property 15 miles away why could you not go home then for your tea / coffee?

How can it be claimed that the purchase of tea / coffee was wholly, necessarily and exclusively for the purpose of the rental property?

The same with toilet rolls.

You cannot argue that you would not have gone to the toilet had you not visited the premises.

You have toilet roles at home, you could take one of those with you.

HMRC will start to get nasty if you start to try to claim for this sort of thing.

Conversely you can claim money for using part of your own home as an office although you could not really justify more than a few hours a year.

Thats a good point actually that I don't know the answer to and I've got to pop out so no time to check up on.

Under the simplified rules you cannot claim anything under 25 hours a month and a single rental property doesn't take 300 hours a year.

What about the £4 per week, are there restrictions (if any) on that for those who only spend perhaps a couple of hours a month looking after self employed matters?... Well, beyond HMRC being able to check whether one really does have a dedicated workspace (don't know if they still do it but I actually had an HMRC inspector turn up on my doorstep in the mid 90's to check my office!).

kind regards,

Shaun.

p.s. if you did the trip every day for a year (including christmas day) you would only rack up 10950 miles and if its always being worked on and never rented out then its not really a business and nothing would be allowable.

MichaelWGroves · Senior Member

Shamus, thanks for your comments;

I suppose I could go home for my coffee breaks and claim mileage, but HMRC will see though that and just say take your tea with you.

I would argue that sat at home on the sofa I don't need to drink as much as when doing manual labour, so this should be allowable.
Likewise, my labourer needs to drink and use toilet paper so this should be allowable, although how HMRC would prove who used the paper could be troublesome.

So there must be an allowable amount for my workers at least?

For working from home I just claim home workers allowance at £18 per month.

I only claim when I'm working at the house, maybe between tenancies and trade shows etc.

FoxAccountancyServices · Expert

I think £5 worth of brewing tackle and bog roll, for the one week Michael is there, will be the last thing HMRC would bother to waste time on

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

Hi Michelle,

its not the expenditure, its the penalties and surcharges if they consider what you are doing to be wrong.

Think of it like the being charged £35 by your bank for sending you the letter to say that you are 2p overdrawn.

Hi Michael,

lol, you kept that line about the workers under your hat. The impression that I got was that it was just popping off to you're rental property and the cuppa's were only for yourself.

Workers make a difference.

If you have workers then provided that the tea / coffee / milk / sugar / toilet roll's are available to all free of charge on equal terms then such is an allowable expense... Thats why you will find such supplies (milk excepted) for sale in staples stationers.

kind regards,

Shaun.

FoxAccountancyServices · Expert

My answer was based on the fact that he said he had a labourer working with him in the first post :)

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

Oops.

FoxAccountancyServices · Expert

I think the reality of the situation is that an inspector wouldn't be looking at £5 in sundry. They would be concentrating on the capital/repair expenditure, perhaps reviewing rents. If they did find it, and Michael explained it, there's a high probability that no more would be said... the inspector could well be in that house drinking that coffee, at the time of the meeting.. though hopefully not using the loo roll! EW!

Even if the inspector did think it was wrongly claimed, they wouldn't issue a penalty on such a trivial amount. They have minimum limits that they chase, and so much more would have to be found, for them to bother.

MarkS · Expert

As long as what you claim is reasonable then HMRC wont bother. They wont charge interest and penalties for a reasonable amount of subsistence costs while away from home.

Mark

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

Hi Mark,

the questions moved away a little form the original angling towards subsistence but going back to that point for a moment (sorry Michael, this is just theoretical rather than relating to your question), in that instance the rented property in question is only 15 miles from the posters home.

If this were a subsistence claim I just don't see that being allowable (I would have a strop about a client trying to claim it let alone an inspector).

That said, I also cannot find any HMRC page with a deminimus limit on the distance of the destination from the clients office where subsistence is deemed acceptable.

So therein lies the question. What distance would you consider warrants subsistence being acceptable to claim?

kind regards,

Shaun.

EstherG · Member

I was always under the impression that travel and subsistence could be claimed where there was a significant difference in postcode. I would say that 15 miles is a substantial distance and that nobody would be expected to travel home for a cup of tea and loo break!

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

But the taxpayer is not going to the toilet wholly, necessarily and exclusively for the purpose of the business. They would have gone anyway.

Same with a coffee break.

If I decide to go for a coffee whilst working as a permanent employee I would pay for it out of my own pocket as it is my choice to drink a coffee.

Why for a self employed person should the tax payer compensate the price of that coffee?

I think I may have been broken when it comes to distances as I live in the Midlands but my clients tend to be in London, Edinburgh and Swansea.

Where I live we often drive more than 15 miles to the shops or cinema that that distance seems nothing and not the sort of distance that I would consider justifying allowable subsistence.

kind regards,

Shaun.

p.s. post labourer discussion this does not relate to your scenario Michael, as mentioned above its now a theoretical discussion.

MichaelWGroves · Senior Member

Statying with the theorectical discussion in a very light hearted way.........

I have a full time job as an employee, I have a cup of coffee, I take a dump. The employer pays for the coffee & the paper, and better still I get paid for the pleasure.

On Saturday I drive to my flat, do some work, have a coffee and a dump, I have to pay for the coffee and the paper.

In both scenarios I was gonna have a coffee and a dump, what's the difference????????????????????