Expenses – The sequel
January 21, 2008 in Business Expenses, Tax
Following hard on the heels of my “Buyer Aware” article I am pleased to announce that we have secured some sensible improvements to our Expense policy for Contractors. Our fundamental practices in this area remain unchanged and it is for these reasons that HMRC were happy to increase limits where appropriate.
I won’t go into all the specific changes, our revised expense guide has all that detail but I did want to take this opportunity to make some further points around expenses.
- Expense approval could be considered a pain but we check every claim. Making sure the expenses are correct and legitimate is in all our best interests. The liability for mis-claiming would sit with the Contractor and whilst it may seem like “red tape” by those Umbrella Companies that do it by the book, it really does make sense.
- Changing Umbrella Company is not a guaranteed way to continue claiming travel to work expenses if you hit the 24 month rule (You cannot claim expenses when you know you will be at the same site for 2 years at the point you know that fact). There should be a sensible break (not 1 day!) between assignments.
Some of the above is explained when you are shopping around, some of it isn’t. As I said in the earlier article, dispensations are not an excuse to claim anything without receipts that you have not incurred. Remember, most of the red tape keeps you away from the gaze of HMRC and allows you to contract without risk.
by Rob Crossland
Get Switched On – Issue One
January 28, 2008 in Industry comment
No this is not an advert for cheaper gas bills but the name of our re-launched Contractor newsletter. “Switched On” replaces Paradigm and comes with a fresh new design and content based around Contractor feedback. One of the key items in the first version will be the findings from our recent Contractor survey. We have run several surveys over the years and the latest one makes very interesting reading. I was personally delighted with the response levels and both the positive and constructive feedback. We have already acted on some of that feedback and will continue to do so. There is also an important article that could save you £’s in relation to tax so hopefully these two alone will make it interesting enough for you to receive some value.
My other hope is that Switched On gives you more of an insight into how Parasol operates and our culture. It get’s harder to communicate on that latter point as a business grows and here at Parasol we have taken steps to ring fence the things that make us what we are. We went as far as agreeing those and documenting the details, everyone at Parasol knows what we stand for and how we do business. Being a largely web facing business could make us faceless but we strive to be human and open in all that we do. If anyone ever needs any evidence, ask for our Blueprint and copies of the tons of testimonial emails we receive.
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