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Expenses while away on business.

scotty38 said:
Used to work with a bloke and I signed off expenses. Questioned what I thought was excessive breakfast/lunch receipts and had the breakdown. "Is that what you would normally do for breakfast/lunch then?" "Well, no of course not". "Don't take the piss then!"
My view was if you ordinarily bought a sandwich for lunch and I asked you to work away and that same sandwich was twice the price, that is a fair expense to be claimed. Go to the pub for lunch and a drink and then tell me your lunch is more expensive than normal well don't be surprised if I don't agree.
Obviously, we're not talking about pub being the only available option.....
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The same logic can be used for "special services rendered" when away from the wife...or at least it's something we used to joke about.
 
Once had an MD who told finance to reject any expense claims where there was steak on the receipt as it was too good for engineers, he also refused to let us fly anything more than economy even if the customer was paying for business class and also refused to let engineers have BMW, Audi, Volvo or Mercedes for company cars.
 
scotty38 said:
Used to work with a bloke and I signed off expenses. Questioned what I thought was excessive breakfast/lunch receipts and had the breakdown. "Is that what you would normally do for breakfast/lunch then?" "Well, no of course not". "Don't take the piss then!"
My view was if you ordinarily bought a sandwich for lunch and I asked you to work away and that same sandwich was twice the price, that is a fair expense to be claimed. Go to the pub for lunch and a drink and then tell me your lunch is more expensive than normal well don't be surprised if I don't agree.
Obviously, we're not talking about pub being the only available option.....
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So send a man away overnight from his home and family and bitch about a few extra quid for subsistence...that's the spirit.
 
I think your allowances are fair enough, and I spend a lot of time in hotels. I seldom spend as much as you have there, and I don't drink in the week except on Thursdays. Where rigid systems like this fall down is that if I go out and have salad and mineral water Monday to Weds, then a steak and 2 or 3 pints on Thursday, I don't want some petty tosser bitching about the bill. It's the average that counts and as above if you might yourself cook a steak and have half a bottle of wine or 2 or 3 pints while at home, why shouldn't you do the same when you are away?

I've developed a few tricks to get around this. If you stay somewhere regularly you can often get a hop flavoured "dessert" that just happens to come in a pint glass. I've also heard that some people have receipt books, buy some bits and bobs and a drop of ale at the supermarket, then write a receipt to cover a reasonable amount, though I'm sure that you would never consider such a thing.
 
thebiglebowski said:
Once had an MD who told finance to reject any expense claims where there was steak on the receipt as it was too good for engineers, he also refused to let us fly anything more than economy even if the customer was paying for business class and also refused to let engineers have BMW, Audi, Volvo or Mercedes for company cars.
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Slightly deviating the the OP question but, my favorite frustrating corporate policy story:

We had an MD (of UK only) about 25 years ago who had a personal dislike of 4x4 vehicles and banned them from the otherwise quite open and generous company car policy. This ended up being written into a policy document and was therefore "set in stone".

Long after he had retired, I tried to fight this on several occasions, mainly because I wanted a 4wd car rather than a full on offroader but it was in the policy as 4x4. I took a very measured approach starting with the fleet manager and then going up the whole management chain to the head of HR for Europe. Bear in mind that all other countries in Europe including Ireland were permitted 4x4. I actually sat in the head of HR office while she tried to explain that because it was written in the policy document she couldn't change it. Me pointing out that she was in charge of policy for Europe did not change her view. It became apparent that there was no logic in the policy at all, purely down to someones opinion 20 years ago and no one would question or change it.

It took a good friend of mine who shared my view to be promoted to VP of all Europe to force the change through about 3 years ago.
 
What really pees me off about this sort of thing is when "the workers" are subject to rules like these but for the senior managers it's five star all the way.

I used to travel by train Manchester to London regularly and when the boss came he would trot off into first class and enjoy his full English while I had to do battle in cattle and pay for my own coffee.
 
thedanfan said:
What really pees me off about this sort of thing is when "the workers" are subject to rules like these but for the senior managers it's five star all the way.

I used to travel by train Manchester to London regularly and when the boss came he would trot off into first class and enjoy his full English while I had to do battle in cattle and pay for my own coffee.
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Poor show. We mostly don't get that in my company, the only difference is VP's are allowed business class flights but all other stuff is the same.
 
My very first 'proper' job involved reviewing the Expenses Code for a government department. To give some idea of how outdated it was, there were clauses for servants' expenses, and exemption for junior staff travelling third class in mining districts.
 
cooky1257 said:
Really?
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Wowsers I shall be sure to include absolutes next time round... As it happens in this case it was a day in London, £20 odd for breakfast on the train and £30 odd for lunch, including the expense of newspapers. Didn't claim for any newspapers any other day of the week and yes I do remember it well for these very reasons....
 
I think the rules are that if the employer compensates you for the actual costs as incurred then fine, they can claim it as a cost of doing business and it's not income for you attracting extra tax. Or they can use the 'benchmark' rate, or they can use an agreed with HMRC bespoke rate. With these they just pay you the money. But you still have to keep receipts to show you are actually incurring expenses.

FWIW the benchmark meal allowance for an over-night trip is £25.
FWIW2 if the costs go over £25, or whatever bespoke rate you have, claim for the actual costs, employer should be happy with that.

https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/employment-income-manual/eim30240 et al
 
Barrymagrec said:
Like when we used to slip the site maintenance guy a few quid to oil the wheels? That`s a "Facility Fee".
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Had a friend whose budget for a job taking goods to Italy involved a small budget to oil the wheels at customs; unfortunately too small so he had to come back for another £50k!
 
Paul R said:
I think the rules are that if the employer compensates you for the actual costs as incurred then fine, they can claim it as a cost of doing business and it's not income for you attracting extra tax. Or they can use the 'benchmark' rate, or they can use an agreed with HMRC bespoke rate. With these they just pay you the money. But you still have to keep receipts to show you are actually incurring expenses.

FWIW the benchmark meal allowance for an over-night trip is £25.
FWIW2 if the costs go over £25, or whatever bespoke rate you have, claim for the actual costs, employer should be happy with that.

https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/employment-income-manual/eim30240 et al
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I have agreed with my accountant that I can claim £25 per day while I am working away, no receipts. If I have them well and good but no real drama. This £25 covers evening meal, a dinner, incidental expenses (coffee, lunch) and the taxman is happy. Only if it goes over £25 do I have to mess with detailed receipts.
 
stevec67 said:
I have agreed with my accountant that I can claim £25 per day while I am working away, no receipts. If I have them well and good but no real drama. This £25 covers evening meal, a dinner, incidental expenses (coffee, lunch) and the taxman is happy. Only if it goes over £25 do I have to mess with detailed receipts.
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I’d personally be wary of admitting such things on an open forum, just saying, like ;).
 
It's what the taxman allows without detail. You just need to be able to show you're not evading tax should they come to ask.

Taxman says, roughly, if you're away for the night on business and have to buy meals you can have £25 regardless of what you actually spend. The significance is that it comes off the top of the company accounts as an expense, you don't pay personal tax on it and you don't have to account in detail.

Your business can arrange with HMRC for that figure to be greater, I think to do this they would have to show that actual expenses needed to be greater. But I'm not an accountant and I tend to try and keep things simple and only fiddle the ...
 
In my years as international network engineer I lived on a living allowance when abroad.

The key was always to avoid places like Eastern Europe where the allowance was $20 a day. The trouble was, you couldn't avoid them and trying to justify higher rates was impossible when you could easily get slap up haute cuisine nosh for under a fiver.

My company was wary of anyone making too much of a profit from the excess going into their pocket. Didn't want to upset the tax man!
 
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