Christmas meal as an expense?

[Glitter]

Most company's have a Christmas do for their employees. The company my husband works for pays for half the cost of the Christmas meal out.

I would like to have my own Christmas do this year and I wondered if I could put some of the cost through my books as an expense?
The only people going would be myself and my husband (as he helps with my accounts), and we wouldn't normally go for a meal like this, the last time we went out for a meal together was two years ago!

Would the tax people think this was an acceptable expense or not?

[charlottenash]

I'm sure someone will be along to give you sound advice, but I'd imagine it's a no.

[bunyip]

I wouldn't put this through expenses. The general principle for expense items is that they should be essential to the business and wholly benefit the business.

It's going back a bit, but I recall an old manager of mine being pulled up by the company's accounts department for putting the cost of a staff leaving do through the accounts. She was told she could only claim for entertaining customers/clients and not for staff. But this rule might have changed.

[jadavi]

My accountant says staff meals are fine - I put ours through. I'd have thought this was the same

[Chatterbox Childcare]

I know the law changed a while ago and I would say no.

Do you really need this expense which is questionable or can you put some other crafts etc through no problem?

if you really want to do it then ring the HMRC as all answers on the forum are just our own opinions and not fact.

[Tealady]

You are allowed up to £150 per year per person for staff entertainment if you are an employer.

I looked into this last year for our Pre-school. The staff always had a small Christmas bonus/thank-you payment, but they were always given a cheque and it wasn't done through payroll. However I didn't realise this until I took over as treasurer. The amounts were small and by the time they were taxed it would have been a really piddly amount. To get around this we paid for the staff Christmas party so looked into what was allowed then.

I'm not to sure what is allowed if you are self employed though. A quick call (with ages being on hold ) to HMRC would be advisable.

[Glitter]

Thanks for the advice everyone.

I think it would cost me more to sit on hold to HMRC than the cost of the meal!
I didn't really think I would be able to do it. Looks like I will be paying for our Christmas meal myself.

[SwanLake]

Last Christmas a couple of childminders (me included) got together for a meal out at a Holiday Inn (there were loads of us from all over the area). On checking, we were allowed £150 each as an expense for the year - just needed receipts. x