Owens_girl:
Just a thought : Does it really make any difference in the end of the day if we pay for tachoes and digi cards our selfes, as surely we are just going to put it down as Job Expenses on our Tax Allowances. So if the card cost £35 and we put it down as Job expense doesn’t that mean we pay £35 less in tax ■■?
By the way, what else do you guys put down as Job Expenses ?
It’s my first time doing this tax thingie here in the UK.
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Jo
Jo…I am sure to be corrected if this is wrong but as an O/D, or self emplyed you could claim it against tax as a business expense but if your an emplyee on PAYE then the IR already give within general tax allowances a small element for extraneous expenses to cover unknown work related costs and at £38 ish, the Tacho card is likely to be counted as such.
This certainly applies to supply of clothes etc for work other than those overalls and PPE supplied by the company.
jo, cm is correct, unless you are self employed then you cannot claim it back as expenses from the tax office.
the only way to do that would be for your employer to pay for it then put it down as expenses that the company has incurred but even they don’t get full refund of the expense, only a tax deduction from the fee against the companies profits.
CM:
Jo…I am sure to be corrected if this is wrong but as an O/D, or self emplyed you could claim it against tax as a business expense but if your an emplyee on PAYE then the IR already give within general tax allowances a small element for extraneous expenses to cover unknown work related costs and at £38 ish, the Tacho card is likely to be counted as such.
Are you sure? I’ve claimed a deduction of £30-50 p.a. for professional institution membership for a number of years.
The employee may also claim a deduction for any other expenses which are incurred wholly, exclusively and necessarily in the performance of the duties of the employment
Even still, you can’t claim the whole cost back; it’s just taken out of your pre-tax income rather than post-tax, so you only pay 78% of the cost (if you’re a basic rate tax payer).
I’d contact Revenue and Customs (the new name for the Inland Revenue now that they’ve been merged with Customs & Excise) to get the official answer.
Personally, I don’t think that it’s necessarily that much of a massive extra cost anyway - you currently have to buy tacho charts, but with a digital tacho, you won’t have to pay for them any more, just a tacho card, which will hopefully last a number of years, and will probably work out cheaper than charts eventually. Since your employer should be paying for your tacho charts, they should cover the cost of the digital tacho card.