MPs and expenses claims.

biglouis

People who run a business from home can legally claim a whole raft of stuff back - % of rent/mortgage, phone, broadband, council tax, fuel and so on. Happy days.

That's a legitimate part of their costs, biglouie. They're not paying for all that lot in a separate location.

Staff knees ups are a lovely thing to fund, but why should they be tax deductible? They just aren't a business expense.

I agree with that Maisie, workers have to pay tax on any Christmas bonus paid

People who run a business from home can legally claim a whole raft of stuff back - % of rent/mortgage, phone, broadband, council tax, fuel and so on. Happy days.

I'd bet abuse is minimal. Some 'news' is sensational writings.

I don't think anyone has said anything about the tax concession being 'abused', Norah. If it's legal to claim it isn't abuse.

What I, and others, are saying is that the concession shouldn't have been made in the first place.

Out of interest I asked my husband how the receipt is paid for your workers Christmas meal at Three Blackbirds?

He says he uses the business account, could claim tax expenses but doesn't because there are rules about costs, alcohol - seems rather not worth tracking. He's frugal, he doesn't bother to expense it. IOW, out of his profits.

I'd bet abuse is minimal. Some 'news' is sensational writings.

Maize it is MY tax that I pay on my pensions and I say any MP who takes advantage of party expenses is self serving. As for a business claiming it against tax, well I object to that as well , it’s pretty much the same, the taxpayers are paying for it in a roundabout way,

MaizieD I’ve already emailed my MP to ask if he agrees with the proposal. He’s usually very good at replying fairly promptly.

Smileless2012

I wonder if we'll ever know who takes advantage of this.

MP's expense claims are available for the public to see

www.theipsa.org.uk/mp-staffing-business-costs

Though, of course, there will be a time lag between incurring the costs and publication of their claims. So I suspect that 90% of people will have forgotten about this by the time MPs expenses claims for the Christmas period are published.

Barmeyoldbat

This lot are self serving

It's not the MPs who have proposed this, it's the independent body that looks at MP's pay and conditions. MPs have no say at all in the proposals it comes up with.

So it is not 'self serving' on the part of MPs.

We've had a few people on this thread who have said that they claim staff entertaining against tax because tax law allows it. Are they self serving, too?

I wonder if we'll ever know who takes advantage of this.

This lot are self serving

This extra allowance comes out of the taxpayers many of whom will be struggling to make ends meet this Xmas. Why are MPs so entitled?

Maizie they've had over 15k in rises in the past 5 years PLUS a shed load of expenses .. and subsidised food etc.I dont think they do too badly.There are millions who would like to earn half of that ...

Tax payers money should not be spent in this way, while public services are struggling to get by on less money.

Dinahmo

Listening to the radio this morning apparently the direction was aimed at MPs who want to give their constituency staff a Christmas treat and I think it has to exclude the cost of alcohol.

It's a very nice thought, Dinahmo, but it still shouldn't be funded by the state.

I'm sure the headteachers I've worked for would have liked to give their staff a treat, but school budgets wouldn't stand it. We used to organise and pay for our own night out and the HT might buy a round of drinks. We wouldn't expect anything else.

I know that MPs are not very well paid, given the importance of the job they do and the attention that the conscientious ones give to it. But that doesn't make it alright.

Listening to the radio this morning apparently the direction was aimed at MPs who want to give their constituency staff a Christmas treat and I think it has to exclude the cost of alcohol.

The reason the staff party allowance was brought in was because in the "good old days", further back than i care to remember, business men used to take their WAGS and secretaries out to lunch and claim the costs. Entertaining was disallowed apart from genuine staff entertaining. When the rules changed the allowance as a lot less than £150.

What many company directors don't realise is that whilst they deduct entertaining in their accounts it will almost certainly be added back in the tax computations.

I'm not getting at you personally GG13. From other comments you've made, you seem like a good employer. However, as a former state school teacher, I was very conscious of the use of public money. Every school I worked in had a policy about the value of gifts received and the only times we ever received anything for entertainment was from school funds (not the money from government) with the approval of governors. We couldn't even use a school account with discount to buy books we needed for our teaching. It's galling when certain sectors of the public seem to think they have the right to use public service employees as punch bags, when we could see that others were receiving perks we didn't.

Can’t help but wonder what on earth motivated Ipsa to put forward such a contentious proposal? More information on individual members and the aims of Ipsa available at
theipsa.org.uk
This is so out of kilter thinking…

When my childminder colleagues and I are doing our self-employed tax returns and someone has a question about the expenses we can offset, the ironic reply is usually along the lines of, "Hmmm... what would an MP say" 🤔🙄🤦

Rishi Sunak has just warned MPs not to be having parties at taxpayers expense

No idea why this was ever.a thing

Presumably those MP's who are critical, wont be claiming.

Public sector workers do not get subsidized for Xmas parties so * don't see why overpaid MPs should add this to their expenses gravy train. Duck house painting anyone?

I used to work in the CS. Under Labour we had fabulous parties. Also at Christmas we'd go to a fabulous restaurant with marvellous food and lashes of alcohol. It was super!

Sadly, when David Cameron was voted in we didn't have any more lavish parties. We had to put up with bringing our own food into the office. We used to bring alcohol into work as well for leaving dos and whatnot.

That ended as well.

Getting back to these expenses, hopefully the MPs will simply not take advantage of the perk.

GrannyGravy13

MaizieD

I appreciate it's a 'goodwill' gesture, GG13, same as those 'gifts', and I don't blame you for taking advantage of the tax laws, but I just find the fact that it got through Parliament at some time really surprising.

Adam Smith on legislation, (though I doubt that he had making staff entertaining tax deuctible in mind) :

...Smith is adamant that law and policy should never be entrusted to those who live by profit.
The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the publick, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the publick, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.”

Very easy to quote folks MaizieD

Running (if somewhat from a distance since Covid) and owning a SME for over forty years excuse me if I find your attitude somewhat patronising and dare I say naive to the day to day, week to week, month to month and year to year trials, tribulations and running costs (of all kinds) of a business.

That was your choice, GG13.

But it doesn't make the tax deductible status of staff entertaining any more justified.

I'm not getting at you. I'm objecting to the principle.