I was following a discussion over the weekend about someone asking if it was OK to expense accountancy training as part of his role as a company owner.  My understanding of any expenses, including training costs, is that the expense must be wholly and exclusively in the line of your work. So clearly you can’t re-train as a driving instructor if you are working as a CAD/CAM designer: well actually you can, of course,  it’s just that it’s not a tax-deductible expense.

However some other responses made me think. Clearly someone running a company needs at least a basic working knowledge of accountancy, so why would this not be an allowable expense?  Time to visit the horror that is the HMRC website…

So an hour later (at least, it felt like an hour) I found the link. Or the beginning of the usual daisy chain of inter-related links.

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/bimmanual/BIM42526.htm

What is says, in effect, that training is allowable if it is directly related to fee earning.  If you gain an entirely different skill, like accountancy, then it isn’t.  Which is pretty much as I thought, thankfully.

Of course, YourCo can pay you for what ever it wants. The only question is whether or not that payment is classed as a Benefit in Kind. A 22″ flat screen for your PC is fine, but not a 50″ plasma unless you are hoping to hold seminars in your living room and never watch TV. Why people find that so hard to understand is really beyond me.

By Malvolio

Image by Deborah Fitchett

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