Subsistence expense claims

SussexAccountancy

Can anyone help with the following?

I'm looking at subsistence rules, and whether clients can claim for lunches at their desk (no!), travel to and from work (no!), travel to client offices (yes) and finally, subsistence when travelling for business.

Everything seems to be based around "reasonable costs" for meals when overnight stays are required.

I have one client who has been told by a previous accountant that if a client is more than 20 miles away, whether overnight or not, subsistence can be claimed, but I can find no reference to this anywhere.

I would like to know if anyone can let me know if there is such a rule, and what other accountants allow when dealing with subsistence queries with clients,


Thanks!



SA

SashaDella

From my experience the rules are that business trip subs can be reclaimed - however evening meals cannot.

sjkr

I would go with the reasonable cost of meals on overnight stays rule. I assume that this would include the cost of evening meals, I have never seen anything which excludes them. I have never heard of this 20 mile rule which your client has mentioned and I would not allow those expenses. Hope this helps!

reader

SussexAccountancy wrote: »

Can anyone help with the following?

I'm looking at subsistence rules, and whether clients can claim for lunches at their desk (no!), travel to and from work (no!), travel to client offices (yes) and finally, subsistence when travelling for business.

Everything seems to be based around "reasonable costs" for meals when overnight stays are required.

I have one client who has been told by a previous accountant that if a client is more than 20 miles away, whether overnight or not, subsistence can be claimed, but I can find no reference to this anywhere.

I would like to know if anyone can let me know if there is such a rule, and what other accountants allow when dealing with subsistence queries with clients,


Thanks!



SA

I've heard of a 5 mile rule, i.e. if the 'subsistence' is bought within 5 miles of the normal place of work (e.g. the client's home) it cannot be included as subsistence. I have not heard of the 20 mile rule.

Re: subsistence, if the client is away (5+ miles) from their normal place of work, I allow the subsistence. I normally allow evening meals too as I deal with a lot of media/entertainer clients who only perform in the evening.

With 'normal' clients, the allow-ability of evenings meals could probably be argued for if they are working late.

I normally have around a £10 cut-off, i.e. if the bill is more than £15 I will generally post it to entertainment.

If the client is a limited company there is also a £5/night overnight expenses allowance that can be claimed in addition to travel + evening meal + accommodation + breakfast. The allowance helps to cover the cost of phone calls home, laundry, newspapers, etc.

With subsistence/entertainment I generally use a common sense approach and just try to be reasonable with regard to what is subsistence, what is entertainment and what is personal.

stevo5678

reader wrote: »

I normally have around a £10 cut-off, i.e. if the bill is more than £15 I will generally post it to entertainment.

I use something similar but if the receipt has two persons on it and the business has no staff I treat as entertaining. This is normally caught by the £15 ish 'rule' anyway.