Seems some people are having trouble claiming back for their mid day meal allowance , I simply wrote a letter as follows ,
Name
Address
Dear sir or madam ,
My name is (insert name ) & I have been employed as an hgv driver with (company name) since (date you started) my d.o.b is (date) & my N.I .number is (…) .
I would like to claim back the £2 a day midday meal allowance as stated in emi66150 & emi66140, if you have any questions regarding this please contact me on (insert number)
Thank you ,
Send your letter to:
Tax reclaim
HM Revenue & customs
Pay As You Earn
PO Box 1970
Liverpool
L75 1WX
They will contact your employer with a new coding notice & you should get a rebate , info is here
Won’t they want proof of what days you’ve worked or not over the past year? And receipts?
If this were an automatic amount paid out just for “being a professional driver” for the past tax year, then surely we’d all be automatically getting it against our pay already?
Nope, I never produced a single receipt or proof of anything , they never phoned to ask me a thing , they can check where you work themselves by your tax info , It’s got to be worth 5 minutes of everybody’s time & the cost of a stamp
also did you know that you can claim for washing your work clothes (they must have a company logo on them).
I get somewhere in the region of £190 tax break a year for this.
Winseer:
Won’t they want proof of what days you’ve worked or not over the past year? And receipts?
If this were an automatic amount paid out just for “being a professional driver” for the past tax year, then surely we’d all be automatically getting it against our pay already?
That’s what I don’t understand as well why not just give it to everyone. It is based on days and hours worked so if you get your tax code changed and then your hours change you have got to tell them you are not entitled to it or you will end up oweing them
It’s a tax reclaim ! They assume you spend £2 a day on meal , its tax deductable as your classed as a mobile worker , you just have to submit your claim to get it , they won’t just give it to you , I done it & the rebate I had has paid for an all inclusive 10 day holiday to Rhodes next week ,
I asked in the other thread but got no response. Would I be able to apply for van driving. If so how would I change the covering letter. What code etc cheers Stewart
bluestew:
I asked in the other thread but got no response. Would I be able to apply for van driving. If so how would I change the covering letter. What code etc cheers Stewart
This particular claim is for hgv drivers , there is a claim for other mobile workers , there should be info on the hmrc website , have a look there …
It looks like a claim of this £2 allowance would be “in place of” rather than “in addition to” the £5-£10 many of us get for being “mobile workers with mean expenses” already.
At least as far as agency is concerned…
I’m still awaiting my new tax code for the coming year based on info I gave them weeks ago, so it doesn’t look like they’re in any hurry alas.
I have no idea why you lot are having such difficulty maybe they have got ■■■■■■ off with all the claims? But this spread throughout my company last year and every driver done it 250+ drivers we are day/night men. I got about 400quid cant mind exact figure will be on that other thread. Money for old rope, i think you should just claim 2quid so its simple and not try and milk it to 5quid etc.
All they do is contact your company to verify your job title and length of service, you don’t need receipts if you only claim 2 quid a day.
Ahh… Had a look at mine, and it looks like a couple of allowances have been built into my tax code that includes PPE and subsistence amounts per year. It’s about £200 a year for the pair of them combined, so I must already be getting mine.
merc0447:
I have no idea why you lot are having such difficulty maybe they have got ■■■■■■ off with all the claims? But this spread throughout my company last year and every driver done it 250+ drivers we are day/night men. I got about 400quid cant mind exact figure will be on that other thread. Money for old rope, i think you should just claim 2quid so its simple and not try and milk it to 5quid etc.
All they do is contact your company to verify your job title and length of service, you don’t need receipts if you only claim 2 quid a day.
I think this is the problem , trying to claim for more than juwt the £2 a day, keep it simple people
1st time I wrote I just said I wanted to claim the midday meal allowance.
They then asked how much for
I wrote back and said on average £3.50 /day
They wrote back and said that it was refused due to lack of receipts.
I wrote again and told them they’d never asked for receipts and as I didn’t have them understand there was a £2 day flat rate available
Just received another letter today.
The paragraph that stands out is
Any information or letter templates given to you which suggest an agreed meal allowance amount (for example £500 per year) have been approved by HMRC is incorrect. HMRC has no agreement in place for the use of any kind of fixed rate when claiming tax relief for meal expenses - any claim should be based on actual expenditure.
It then goes on to say that receipts will need to be submitted to assure them the expense has been incurred and paid.
So if I am to persist with this I need some receipts, any ideas how many would satisfy them?
I can only talk from my own personal experience of this , I had no problems whatsoever , even now the tax code has increased for everyone I had a letter just before April to say that my tax code would one that is higher to take into account the meal allowance , unless the tax office has been inundated with request & decided to review its process I hqve no idea why it would be refused if your just asking for the reclaim allowance ,
I know I’m well gutted, to be fair it seems like it’s too good to be true if it works so I wasn’t holding my breath.
I wish I’d kicked off with a £2 / day to start with, but when they asked I thought I’d chance my arm and half expected them to refuse the £3.50 for no receipts but offer the £2 instead. I’m sure I could come of with some burger van type receipts for a while.
Whilst I may not actually spend any money on a daily basis buying a mid day meal I do have to buy food that I take with me to eat. Maybe I should show them the Asda & Tesco entries on my credit card statement! I could claim for an army.
I posted this in an earlier post but some may have missed it.
You can claim for meals taken as a result of being away from home, and you can claim up to six years back.
You cannot claim if your taking sandwiches from home or if you receive a meal allowance from your firm. You are allowed to claim allowance for meals incurred wholly and necessarily in the performance of your work ( the I.R. description of it) away from home in exactly the same way as a travelling salesman or rep.
The reason I know this is that I was the first driver in the UK to be paid out by Inland Revenue. I was on the Drivers Committee at Smith and Robinsons Tankers, Leeds in 1970/80 and represented 250 drivers in a claim for meal allowance. This was many years ago but we were successful. Initially all the drivers received a payment of about £65 but I disputed the amount,(the chief tax inspector had slipped an illegal penalty clause in.)
I put myself forward as a test case and appeared before the Tax Commissioners in Leeds. (John Langford V the Inland Revenue.) I won the case and received about £800 rebate,(you can claim 6 years back tax.) I also then received an allowance of about £600 p.a. this set a precedent which drivers could follow.
It took me about two years and I had four questions asked of the Chief Tax inspector,(at the time Lord Cockborn ?) in Parliament.
I received no help at all from TGWU in Leeds other than after I fell out big time with them and they paid for me to go see their Lawyers to check certain ideas I had and wanted to know if I was on the right lines. Following this the I.R. wouldn’t let me take it forward as a block booking and drivers had to make individual claims. I know some did successfully, quoting me as an example but most couldn’t be bothered.
In the months following I had the TGWU in Scotland and some others asking me how I had done it. A local accountant who was representing some Harold Woods Tanker drivers offered to do my tax free for a year if I showed him how, which I did and he accompanied me to Leeds on a visit to meet the Tax people dealing with it.
Ultimately the situation is they aren’t playing unless I provide evidence which I haven’t got. If they sang from the same sheet with everyone it’d be easy to accept. But there seems to be no consistency to their granting of the rebates. One of the other letters does say that just because other drivers may or may not have successfully claimed it does not set a precedent.
