what receipts do I need to keep

[jashol]

For my accounts !

Petrol? Or just my mileage book?
Food?
Outings?
I use my bank card alot rather than carry cash can I use my bank statements as proof if needed instead of receipts

[Kiddleywinks]

Bank statements don't prove what you bought, just that you spent x amount at x place, that's why you're given receipts showing the items purchased.

I keep receipts for everything I spend with a couple of exceptions:
Petrol - I use my mileage book as my evidence to claim 45p a mile
Food receipts - you need to keep these for 3 months anyway, after that you can throw them away. I use one of my receipts to cost up meals every few months, then keep it to show how I arrived at the amount I'm claiming for meals
Outings - I don't understand what you mean here, but I keep any parking tickets as a receipt. Entrance fees normally get a receipt anyway.

If you have spent below £10, for example on ice creams, then you don't need a receipt

However, the £10 allowance is for any one day, so if you spent £8 on drinks and ice creams at the adventure park, then on the way home you popped into the charity shop and spent £5 on some minibeasts without getting a receipt, the most you could claim would be £10.

Hope that helps

[Kaybeaa]

Bank statements don't prove what you bought, just that you spent x amount at x place, that's why you're given receipts showing the items purchased. I keep receipts for everything I spend with a couple of exceptions: Petrol - I use my mileage book as my evidence to claim 45p a mile Food receipts - you need to keep these for 3 months anyway, after that you can throw them away. I use one of my receipts to cost up meals every few months, then keep it to show how I arrived at the amount I'm claiming for meals Outings - I don't understand what you mean here, but I keep any parking tickets as a receipt. Entrance fees normally get a receipt anyway. If you have spent below £10, for example on ice creams, then you don't need a receipt However, the £10 allowance is for any one day, so if you spent £8 on drinks and ice creams at the adventure park, then on the way home you popped into the charity shop and spent £5 on some minibeasts without getting a receipt, the most you could claim would be £10. Hope that helps

One thing I don't understand about receipts is the fact that HMRC don't ask for receipts under £10. I regularly buy things under £10, some at £5 some at £9.50. Totaled up this comes to a lot. So HMRC don't need to see these? Because surely I could make the figures up if I wanted to? (Not that I do, I actually keep receipts under £10 off my own records) but surely if HMRC don't need to see proof you could effectively just make up a few purchases?

[shortstuff]

To be fair I keep every reciept whether im claiming or not. If I get investigated then HMRC can see what I haven't claimed for too.

[WibbleWobble]

I keep all receipts as being old I forget what I have spent. This way I have a record for my calculations. Ok some things don't have receipts and I have to rely on my own memory but I would rather have a receipt........however small the amount!

Wibble x

[Kiddleywinks]

One thing I don't understand about receipts is the fact that HMRC don't ask for receipts under £10. I regularly buy things under £10, some at £5 some at £9.50. Totaled up this comes to a lot. So HMRC don't need to see these?

The allowance is £10 per day without a receipt, so if you bought on one day 4 things @ £5 each without a receipt, then you would only be able to claim for 2 of them

Because surely I could make the figures up if I wanted to? (Not that I do, I actually keep receipts under £10 off my own records) but surely if HMRC don't need to see proof you could effectively just make up a few purchases?

In theory, yes you could make it up and say you spend up to £10 per day without a receipt, the maximum falsification would be £3650 per year.
Should you ever be inspected however, you will still need to justify the amount claimed. Imagine the scenario....

So Mrs Kaybeaa, I see you had a drop in income this particular year
Yes, I only had one child for 6 months, and they only came for 2 hours a day, twice a week
Oh dear, that must have been hard for you
Oh it was Mr tax man, very difficult. We really struggled to keep our heads above water, but hey ho, that's the nature of self employment
It is indeed Mrs Kaybeaa, it is indeed, so tell me, I notice that there was a significant drop in your income in August of that year why is that
Oh that's because I was on holiday, and parents don't pay me when I'm on holiday.
Oh right, did you go anywhere nice?
Oh yes, my brother got married in the Caribbean so we combined it with a holiday.
Oh whereabouts, my wife and I went there a few years ago

Brief discussion about the pros and cons of the area

So, I notice that year you claimed £10 per day whilst you were away - what did you buy that you couldn't get a receipt for?

At this point it is game over, and not just for that year, but for the previous 6 years if you've been trading that long, as HMRC can go back a maximum of 6 years accounts.
6 years @ £3650 = £21,900 off mis declared expenditure - now that is a lot of money!

It doesn't matter if some of the claim was legitimate at this point, you will be having to justify every single penny you've ever claimed, so it really isn't worth it long term.

Ok I accept that that is an extreme example, but you get the drift lol

Childminders are not multi million pound businesses, so between the NCMA/PACEY and the HMRC there was an agreement made that we were not required to have receipts for purchases under £10 if the situation presented itself - ice cream vans when taking the children on outings for example, so there is an element of trust between us.
But that's not to say they won't hammer us the same as they would ICI if we're found to be defrauding them

[LauraS]

I tend to keep receipts for everything but the regular stuff. So for toddler groups, for example, we go to two per week usually, one costs a pound, one costs nine pounds. I don't have receipts for either, just add them into my diary and accounts as we go along. Ditto small buys at boot sales etc.

Everything else I keep all receipts for, because I would otherwise forget.

I agree the system is open to fraud but the potential for fraud when balanced against the administrative horror for hmrc of having to police all our pound shop receipts on audit probably balances out, so is a pragmatic decision for them.

[wee_elf]

Hi I recently did the childminders webinar with HMRC and they didn't mention the £10 per day rule, they just said that I had to make a note of anything that I spent under £10 for my own records? The example I used incidentally a car boot sale.

[Kiddleywinks]

You should make a note of what you've spent, a receipt book, a notebook, a note on your accounts, anything that works for you.
If you were to be inspected, can you remember what you spent £6.75 on 4 years ago one Thursday in June? Hell, I can't remember what I spent my money on 2 days ago - thought I had a tenner in my purse, but apparently not lol

[Chatterbox Childcare]

Each year the HMRC bring out a documents with expenses for childminders and you should be able to find this on their website as well as in free resources

the £10 rule was changed in either April 12 or April 13 edition and all is explained there