[wcs.]

?

[LWC]

i spend too much on food to be honest, i dont really think about, i must spend like a fiver a day and that 4 days a week, £20 a week £80 a month £960 a year, GULP

when i put it like that, i really do need to sort it out

[Jeff Brimble]

Once upon a time you used to be able to claim for the main meal of the daywhen you where working away from home- if you had reciepts.

[L.J.Thorpe]

i thought you still could
subsistence allowance

[LWC]

i asked my accountant and he was like nope...

[Oakley Windows]

Id be surprised, chocolate is expensive nowadays 

[LWC]

if your out of a certain radius of home you can claim for food but not if your within it

[Oakley Windows]

[Jeff Brimble]

Accountants will/should put any expense against tax that you think you have accrued, but its the IR that could come back and argue at a later date. Maybe best to ask the IR directly and not your accountant who may or may not be up to speed.
Its debatable 

[Londoner]

I'm not sure about this one but its certainly worth a try. My experience with accountants is they are basically lazy and only want to fill in the forms.

Anything that is a bit contencious and so will gererate queries and requires them to negotiate on your behalf they are not interested. Even though that is what you pay them to do.

[karygate]

i went to the tax course they offer for free when i started last year and their advisor said they look for anomalies like receipts for food . she said it wass personally a no no because the least you make the tax man look or question the better.

[Ian W]

I received a letter from the HMRC and they state that except when you are away overnight on business the cost of lunches is not normally allowable.

The way I see it, if it is not necessary to claim for something then don't. Being a few miles away from home isn't going to make buying lunch a necessity. Now, if you were doing commercial a hundred miles away...

[Oakley Windows]

If you buy lunch when you're out working does that mean that you wouldnt have eaten if you'd stayed at home?

[Ian W]

If in the future they question it, so what as long as its genuine expenses they cannot do anything.

I know I’m not the only one on this forum who has to buy food and drink when out working

That is the point, the tax man will not view these as genuine expenses. You have to eat whether you work or not, so they are not genuine expenses.

You also don't HAVE to buy food and drink. (You could take a packed lunch, for example.)
You CHOOSE to buy these items.

Certainly not allowable expenses in my opinion.

[LWC]

i agree ian, as my accountant said, we all have to eat

harldy an expense now is it

[Oakley Windows]

Arent expenses costs youve had to pay for the purpose of work/working?

Id have thought food would need to be bought whether you go to work or not, thus not a work expense, a living expense.

[Captain Scarlet]

I've taken clients out to lunch for contracts and put that against the business

[vision tech]

when i worked in the shipyard my wife made me a packed lunch ,

now i am a selfemployed w/cleaner guess what?

she still makes me a packed lunch.

claim for lunch !!  dont be so stupid.

[vision tech]

ewan is that a scottish name?

explains your reply.

[vision tech]

2 rounds of bread with cheese,packet of crisps chocolate biscuit,an orange and a bottle of juice, and you want to claim expenses?