Claiming expenses along with subsistence?

While operating as a sole trader over the last 6 months I have been including transport costs (bus tickets, parking, tolls etc) as expenses, for times when I was required to be at one of my clients premises in the city centre (I live about 12/15kms outside the city).

Now that I have formed a Ltd. Co. and am an employee I can claim subsistence rates, as 90% of the time that I am at these premises it is for 5 hours or more.

My question is, if I claim subsistence rates I presume I can no longer claim the above expenses as well? In other words, the idea of subsistence rates is to compensate for expenses like these that employees must bear themselves?

Subsistence is to cover the cost of meals and other incidental expenses whilst working away from your normal place of work, it is different to business travel costs such as mileage, bus, parking, tolls, all of which could be claimed in addition to subsistence.

Regards

podowd
www.prima.ie

Excellent, that's great. Had thought it was either one or the other. Thanks!

We just recently formed a limited company. We've been told there's lots of legit ways to take money from the company - one being subsistence - for instance we are two directors employing three ppl along with both of ourselves. Since we r trying to get things up and running we work a lot of hours - we r away from home each day for more than 10 hours; can i claim €41.55 for the 5 of us per day? That's over €1,000 per week without having to pay tax?? Is this ok to do?? We would also incur mileage throughout the month. Any advice would be appreciated.

If your home is your regular place of work, then you can claim subsistence rates for the length of time you are away from it on business. Provided that is, that you actually do work from home on a regular basis and that you don't have any other office anywhere that is your base.

However, and I'm not sure if I've picked you up wrong on this or not, but you can't claim subsistence for the other employees for yourself, if that is what you are asking. Where is your company's regular place of work? Does your new company have an office somewhere? If your employees are away from this office then they can claim the subsistence rates from you as expenses each week/month. You can't claim them for yourself on their behalf.

Also, mileage and business travel expenses can be claimed separately as well as subsistence.

Yes, we dont have an office. My wife looks after the books from home. We are in construction so we all just leave from the 'yard' at home. With regard to the subsistence - they would claim their own subsistence. So just to re-cap.... we are within our rights to claim 41.55 for each day we (all) are away working for more than 10 hours, and would'nt be taxed on it?

I'm not actually sure about your situation, as you say you don't have an office so I'm not sure how this effects things. Technically you can't claim you are away from somewhere if you're never there in the first place, if you follow me. Probably best to speak to your accountant about it as they would know your situation better.

I'm not an accountant, so this is simply a example of my situation which I believe is very different to yours. I've been told I can claim because I actually work from home most of the time, and only 2 or 3 days a week I go to other premises to do some work. This is different ot someone who never works from home but just leaves from there every day.

Sorry if this doesn't help. Maybe someone with more experience on the ins and outs of the construction industry can give you better advice.

Thank you for taking the trouble to reply. Will wait to see if anyone has anything else to add.

Subsistence allowances as set out in Revenue Guide IT51/IT54 (cant remember which) do not apply to construction industry.

Get professional advice on this. The cost of getting this sort of thing wrong can be horrendous.

ubiquitous said:

Subsistence allowances as set out in Revenue Guide IT51/IT54 (cant remember which) do not apply to construction industry.

Get professional advice on this. The cost of getting this sort of thing wrong can be horrendous.

Click to expand...

Yes the Construction Industry is different. If i am not mistaken mileage is given in Dublin as distance from the GPO? Also there is heavy Union & CIF involvement so advice will more than likely be necessary.