HGV Sat Nav live traffic subscription (annual fee)
Work Gloves (for filling diesel/acrylic) - I change these every 4-5 weeks cause they tend to get too dirty
Thermal gloves for work inside fridge trailer (for some reason company refuse to provide gloves, they do provide useless cwap though like logo-ed fleeces, horrible polo shirts, uncomfortable safety boots etc. all stuff I don’t want), again I buy multiple pairs per year as I keep losing them or they break
Hi viz vests (i prefer my own without company logo and better fit)
So not a small amount of ££ I find I spend on work related items, I wonder which ones would qualify for annual deduction
My father was self employed all his life (builder not transport, however the rules are the same) he used to submit every receipt he got for anything related to work to his accountant. Almost everything is tax deductible as long as it’s work related.
toowise:
Depends whether you’re self employed or not.
My father was self employed all his life (builder not transport, however the rules are the same) he used to submit every receipt he got for anything related to work to his accountant. Almost everything is tax deductible as long as it’s work related.
There are different tests as toowise states depending if you are employed or self employed.
For self employed any expenditure needs to be “wholly and exclusively” for the purpose of your work, so if you derive any other benefit from the expense then the expense has to be apportioned. So for example the gloves for fridge work, you get the benefit of warm hands when working, but that would be allowable to claim, but if you used the gloves for snowball fights one month each year, you would only claim 11/12ths of the cost.
For employed any expenditure needs to be “wholly and exclusively and necessarily” for the purpose of your work, so that also has to pass the test that everybody else doing the same job will also need to incur that cost to do the job. The only things I can think of that would be allowable would be legal and regulatory stuff like training costs for your licence and CPC and the cost of your taco card. Anything else like a truck satnav or gloves for fridge work would not be claimable because you could always find someone else that could do the job without them.
.gov seem to use the word “must” in their guidance rather than “necessarily” that I was taught from the legislation. So your High viz which you definitely use for work, but only because you choose to do so, I would say should not qualify. But your sat nav, I guess you would say you couldn’t do your job without it (your employer doesn’t provide a satnav) so you should claim that.
stu675:
For employed any expenditure needs to be “wholly and exclusively and necessarily” for the purpose of your work, so that also has to pass the test that everybody else doing the same job will also need to incur that cost to do the job. The only things I can think of that would be allowable would be legal and regulatory stuff like training costs for your licence and CPC and the cost of your taco card. Anything else like a truck satnav or gloves for fridge work would not be claimable because you could always find someone else that could do the job without them.
.gov seem to use the word “must” in their guidance rather than “necessarily” that I was taught from the legislation. So your High viz which you definitely use for work, but only because you choose to do so, I would say should not qualify. But your sat nav, I guess you would say you couldn’t do your job without it (your employer doesn’t provide a satnav) so you should claim that.
Well bummer, doesn’t seem like any of mine qualify for that. The sat nav I bought ages ago and didn’t claim, and the traffic sub doesn’t seem to count. It’s funny you can claim for working from home - i.e. heating/electricity costs for the room you’re working from but if you’re say an agency cover driver and have to travel to a different site or company every day or week that doesn’t qualify!
Also the DVLA is not on their list of ‘‘Approved professional organisations and learned societies’’ except they mention that HGV license renewal fee and medical fees are claimable so that leaves even DCPC out?
ETS:
It’s funny you can claim for working from home - i.e. heating/electricity costs for the room you’re working from but if you’re say an agency cover driver and have to travel to a different site or company every day or week that doesn’t qualify!
The travel doesn’t qualify for the Ltd drivers either. There’s a lot of Ltd/Umbrella drivers who’ve been claiming travel expenses which HMRC class as oridinary commuting and therefore not claimable. I expect that as time goes on like those who were using the umbrella company in Lincoln and got sent tax bills for £1000s that there will be a lot of Ltd company drivers who end up getting bills in the future as HMRC try to recover money to pay for the covid spending.
I would think that for most of us we could claim for work wear and boots, hi-viz and DCPC also medical and digi card. just submit receipts with your tax return. It wont amount to a lot of money but you may as well have it, rather than the MAN.
toowise:
Depends whether you’re self employed or not.
My father was self employed all his life (builder not transport, however the rules are the same) he used to submit every receipt he got for anything related to work to his accountant. Almost everything is tax deductible as long as it’s work related.
There are different tests as toowise states depending if you are employed or self employed.
For self employed any expenditure needs to be “wholly and exclusively” for the purpose of your work, so if you derive any other benefit from the expense then the expense has to be apportioned. So for example the gloves for fridge work, you get the benefit of warm hands when working, but that would be allowable to claim, but if you used the gloves for snowball fights one month each year, you would only claim 11/12ths of the cost.
For employed any expenditure needs to be “wholly and exclusively and necessarily” for the purpose of your work, so that also has to pass the test that everybody else doing the same job will also need to incur that cost to do the job. The only things I can think of that would be allowable would be legal and regulatory stuff like training costs for your licence and CPC and the cost of your taco card. Anything else like a truck satnav or gloves for fridge work would not be claimable because you could always find someone else that could do the job without them.
.gov seem to use the word “must” in their guidance rather than “necessarily” that I was taught from the legislation. So your High viz which you definitely use for work, but only because you choose to do so, I would say should not qualify. But your sat nav, I guess you would say you couldn’t do your job without it (your employer doesn’t provide a satnav) so you should claim that.
stu675:
For employed any expenditure needs to be “wholly and exclusively and necessarily” for the purpose of your work, so that also has to pass the test that everybody else doing the same job will also need to incur that cost to do the job. The only things I can think of that would be allowable would be legal and regulatory stuff like training costs for your licence and CPC and the cost of your taco card. Anything else like a truck satnav or gloves for fridge work would not be claimable because you could always find someone else that could do the job without them.
.gov seem to use the word “must” in their guidance rather than “necessarily” that I was taught from the legislation. So your High viz which you definitely use for work, but only because you choose to do so, I would say should not qualify. But your sat nav, I guess you would say you couldn’t do your job without it (your employer doesn’t provide a satnav) so you should claim that.
Well bummer, doesn’t seem like any of mine qualify for that. The sat nav I bought ages ago and didn’t claim, and the traffic sub doesn’t seem to count. It’s funny you can claim for working from home - i.e. heating/electricity costs for the room you’re working from but if you’re say an agency cover driver and have to travel to a different site or company every day or week that doesn’t qualify!
Also the DVLA is not on their list of ‘‘Approved professional organisations and learned societies’’ except they mention that HGV license renewal fee and medical fees are claimable so that leaves even DCPC out?
There’s no way DCPC could not be claimed for, just because they don’t include it as an example. It’s a legal requirement. You cannot do your job without it. It’s only if your employer reimbursed you or paid for it that you couldn’t claim for it.
Quinny:
Put any receipts in you feel you need to. Your accountant is only going to say 2 things, yes or no.
Ken.
If you’re on PAYE you definitely don’t need an accountant. Their fees would not justify the tax you were claiming. Just do an online claim, you might not even need to do the whole self assessment.
alamcculloch:
I would think that for most of us we could claim for work wear and boots, hi-viz and DCPC also medical and digi card. just submit receipts with your tax return. It wont amount to a lot of money but you may as well have it, rather than the MAN.
Not the purchase of workwear, only the cleaning or repair of it. But bizarrely you can claim for the replacement of it.
"Uniforms, work clothing and tools
You may be able to claim tax relief on the cost of:
repairing or replacing small tools you need to do your job (for example, scissors or an electric drill)
cleaning, repairing or replacing specialist clothing (for example, a uniform or safety boots)
You cannot claim relief on the initial cost of buying small tools or clothing for work.
I strongly suspect that anything you buy yourself because you don’t like the offering from your employer would render that as ineligible for tax deduction.
There is an amount of £60 for laundering a uniform (a figure that can be used if the profession isn’t on a set list). If you are a driver working in a particular industry such as forestry or the like, then potentially a higher tax deduction could be made.
If you are a 20% tax payer, this could put £12 in your pocket for the year or for a 40% tax payer £24. Pretty small potatoes at the end of the day.
One thing you may be able to claim tax relief on is meal allowance, which have benchmarks of £5 for over 5 hours and £10 for over 10 hours. Apparently also £25 for 15 hours or if a journey is ongoing at 8pm. You would need to be away from base all day. This is potentially a money spinner, say for 232 shifts of 10 hours plus, tax deductible £2320, so £464 tax saved in the year for a 20% tax payer.
The meal allowance is one of the aspects of the tax system a certain well known logistics company (with green, red and white vehicles) use to give the impression of higher wages.
Noremac:
I strongly suspect that anything you buy yourself because you don’t like the offering from your employer would render that as ineligible for tax deduction.
There is an amount of £60 for laundering a uniform (a figure that can be used if the profession isn’t on a set list). If you are a driver working in a particular industry such as forestry or the like, then potentially a higher tax deduction could be made.
If you are a 20% tax payer, this could put £12 in your pocket for the year or for a 40% tax payer £24. Pretty small potatoes at the end of the day.
One thing you may be able to claim tax relief on is meal allowance, which have benchmarks of £5 for over 5 hours and £10 for over 10 hours. Apparently also £25 for 15 hours or if a journey is ongoing at 8pm. You would need to be away from base all day. This is potentially a money spinner, say for 232 shifts of 10 hours plus, tax deductible £2320, so £464 tax saved in the year for a 20% tax payer.
The meal allowance is one of the aspects of the tax system a certain well known logistics company (with green, red and white vehicles) use to give the impression of higher wages.
Yes regarding the work uniform I didn’t say I want to claim for it but for PPE (gloves) which are not provided, no gloves at all. Forget hi viz they cost like £1 each so I wouldn’t even bother
About the meals wouldn’t you have to actually buy the meals and save/show the receipts (or rummage through the bins at the services risking a rat bite)
Back when I used to buy a MCd every once in a while I’d collect the receipts for some reason but when I looked at them one day the older ones had all faded so I threw them all away
Noremac:
I strongly suspect that anything you buy yourself because you don’t like the offering from your employer would render that as ineligible for tax deduction.
There is an amount of £60 for laundering a uniform (a figure that can be used if the profession isn’t on a set list). If you are a driver working in a particular industry such as forestry or the like, then potentially a higher tax deduction could be made.
If you are a 20% tax payer, this could put £12 in your pocket for the year or for a 40% tax payer £24. Pretty small potatoes at the end of the day.
One thing you may be able to claim tax relief on is meal allowance, which have benchmarks of £5 for over 5 hours and £10 for over 10 hours. Apparently also £25 for 15 hours or if a journey is ongoing at 8pm. You would need to be away from base all day. This is potentially a money spinner, say for 232 shifts of 10 hours plus, tax deductible £2320, so £464 tax saved in the year for a 20% tax payer.
The meal allowance is one of the aspects of the tax system a certain well known logistics company (with green, red and white vehicles) use to give the impression of higher wages.
The meal allowance, I believe, is not something that anyone can claim.
IF you receive it, then up to the limits it’s not taxable.
That’s the point, it’s much better to receive the allowance rather than just claim tax.
(I might be misremembering, might go and check for myself)
I know someone that is a carer they went to one of these no win no fee people but for taxes. the oneshe did went through a few things on the phone with her to see if it was worth thier time. dunno what percentage they took but she got 2-300 back. They claimed for all sorts of things like washing her uniform and work wear and no she isnt self employed or anything like that.
I’ve had a look at the government website and not sure where/how to claim back certain things on my self assessment. Mainly, night out payments, subsistence payments and mileage payments. I’ve received these but were taxed on them.
stu675:
The meal allowance, I believe, is not something that anyone can claim.
IF you receive it, then up to the limits it’s not taxable.
That’s the point, it’s much better to receive the allowance rather than just claim tax.
(I might be misremembering, might go and check for myself)
I am not an expert, and I haven’t visited the legislation recently, but it is my belief that you can claim a tax deduction regardless of whether the expenses have been reimbursed. It goes without saying if your employer does reimburse and uses the tax deduction, then you can’t reuse it yourself. At the end of the day you are responsible for your tax affairs.
In terms of receipts, if you are using benchmark figures, then I don’t believe the receipts are required, however, you could be asked for a breakdown of which days you worked and for how long.
You can certainly claim the tax deduction on a tax return and I believe there used to be a form to submit expenses (but only up to a certain amount). I don’t know if the form is available or not, or whether you can fill in an online form now. I haven’t looked at it recently, but I believe you can even go back up to 3 or 4 years (but do you have records?).
The main barrier to people claiming this appears to be the record keeping required and the know-how in submitting the tax return or completing the claim form and returning it. There has to be many many drivers who are out all day and are eligible to remove £5-£10 a day from tax consideration. It does add up.
I have been quite open about this facility on the forums and of course it is entirely ethical because drivers do tend to spend a bit on subsistence when out and about. With the best will in the world there isn’t really much time for cooking and making lunches when working long hours and takeout food can be expensive.
but if you’re say an agency cover driver and have to travel to a different site or company every day or week that doesn’t qualify!