Business Expenses within same industry

[jimmeboy]

Hi everyone,

I have a question regarding allowable tax deductible business expenses that a company may claim as a tax deductible expense.

I realise that under normal circumstances and for most businesses that food and beverages (meals, drinks etc) and also some travel (hotels, flights etc) and generally not an allowable tax deductible business expense.

So... what if the business operates within, or its clients are within one of these industries?

For the sake of a working example, lets take Groupon.ie. Many of their clients would be restaurants, bars, hotels and holiday providers.

Now, lets say that Groupon was sending its sales staff out to these businesses to "research" the businesses or to use their patronage at the business as a successful sales method to get the business to sign up and advertise with them.

These staff then incurring expenses for food, drinks and hotels...

My question is, are these expenses now an allowable tax deductible business expense?

 

[Joe_90]

I realise that under normal circumstances and for most businesses that food and beverages (meals, drinks etc) and also some travel (hotels, flights etc) and generally not an allowable tax deductible business expense.

Client entertainment is specifically not allowed. Meals for sole traders are not allowed, paying for your staffs lunch everyday could be deducted but you would have to operate BIK it.

If staff are away from their normal place of work a subsistence allowance is payable to cover the cost of meals.

Don't know what the comment on flights and hotels refers to are your talking about the Contractors project.

If you were legitimately doing research on potential customers you could argue that the expense of a meal was allowable.

 

[jimmeboy]

Client entertainment is specifically not allowed. Meals for sole traders are not allowed, paying for your staffs lunch everyday could be deducted but you would have to operate BIK it.

Sorry, I wasn't trying to refer to entertaining clients in order to win their business. More that, for example, if the salesperson was dining in a restaurant, and from experience, they would have a higher sales close rate if they were to be a customer of the business they were trying to win as a client, than if they were not.

Don't know what the comment on flights and hotels refers to are your talking about the Contractors project.

This was more to do with the "research" side of the argument I guess...

Lets say a travel agent wanted to advertise a holiday package with Groupon. However before Groupon agree to advertise the business and offer, they send one of their staff on the same holiday as a "quality control assignment", with the purpose of ensuring that the holiday and the provider is of an acceptable quality.


I would welcome any comments on the above.