Expenses – The sequel

Posted on 21 January 2008

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Following hard on the heels of my “Buyer Aware” article I am pleased to announce that we have secured some sensible improvements to our Expense policy for Contractors. Our fundamental practices in this area remain unchanged and it is for these reasons that HMRC were happy to increase limits where appropriate.

I won’t go into all the specific changes, our revised expense guide has all that detail but I did want to take this opportunity to make some further points around expenses.

•  Expense approval could be considered a pain but we check every claim. Making sure the expenses are correct and legitimate is in all our best interests. The liability for mis-claiming would sit with the Contractor and whilst it may seem like “red tape” by those Umbrella Companies that do it by the book, it really does make sense.
•  Changing Umbrella Company is not a guaranteed way to continue claiming travel to work expenses if you hit the 24 month rule (You cannot claim expenses when you know you will be at the same site for 2 years at the point you know that fact). There should be a sensible break (not 1 day!) between assignments.

Some of the above is explained when you are shopping around, some of it isn’t. As I said in the earlier article, dispensations are not an excuse to claim anything without receipts that you have not incurred. Remember, most of the red tape keeps you away from the gaze of HMRC and allows you to contract without risk.

Category: Business Expenses, Tax

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