MYSTERY SHOPPING THREAD XII - ** New people please read posts 1 & 2 **

Scotties_Mum

proshopper wrote: »

Tax on reimbursements is a very grey area. As an employed MSer, HMRC is not interested in the reimbursements I receive in the course of my employment. For my self-employed work, I declare those reimbursements that have benefit to me, and therefore I pay income tax one these. The taxman does not consider that I benefit from buying six beverages and six items of snack food over the course of five hours.

I know that we all differ on whether reimbursement only jobs are "working for free." The reimbursement covers only the item/s purchased in the course of that work. If I do one of these jobs, I am incurring travel costs and other expenses such as telephone calls, internet use, printing, etc. More importantly, it is using my time. Suppose I get a reimbursed £10 lunch: I travel 50 miles which takes 90 minutes and spend 90 minutes in the restaurant. That accounts for three hours of my time. I will have already spent at least 15 minutes prior to the job (applying, printing off paperwork, familiarising myself with the job brief/questionnaire, etc.). I spend some time immediately after the visit making notes. I then have to submit a report. I would be very lucky with some of these jobs to get it all out of the way in a total of four hours. So, £10 reimbursement for about four hours work? In my reckoning, I must have worked for free at some point, even if I factor out my travelling time.

If I consider the reimbursement as pay, I think a pay rate of £2 to £3 per hour (paid in kind as a meal) is frankly quite insulting.

Personally, I only take food jobs if I am in the area anyway.. bu hey, if you want to travel 50 miles for a greasy burger, good on you!

vicz123

i have no intention of paying tax on re-imb for fast food or meals out. they are integral to the job and i do not see them as a 'benefit'. yes i have not had to pay for food for my meal but i wouldn't eat out if it was not for the job and my meals at home cost about £1 per meal as i cook in bulk so i have not saved the re-imb amount by eating out.

on the other hand, clothes, toiletries, food in the supermarket etc... i do consider a benefit and so will pay tax on.

i look at is as anything that isn't instantly consumed and can be taken home is a benefit and tax should be paid.

i know someome who has done their tax return like this for years and not had a problem, despite HMRC going through it with a fine tooth comb one year

in my spread sheet i have a total paid column where i add fee, re-imb, mileage etc.. together and then have a necessary expenses column where i record the consumed food. this column is subtracted from the total amount to work out the taxable amount of pay

vicz123

ChefBungle wrote: »

I've just emailed them to see if there's any way they can increase my radius, because it only allows you to put in 2 postcodes - your home one and another nominated one. But I live in the sticks so that postcode doesn't cough up much, and I reckon the one postcode in town is half a mile's radius if you're lucky.

I'll let you all know what they say.

i am currently seeing jobs 40 miles from my postcode on gfk and i see this place regularly (shrug shoulders) can't remember if you had to select a distance you were prepared to travel when you applied?

i find gr the most random, my home postcode is 1 mile from the city centre and i didn't ever see a job there (in 8 months).i changed the postcode to a shop in the centre and now i have seen two in a week! whereas another postcode i have allows jobs 10 miles away to be displayed!

misssarahleigh

vicz123 wrote: »

i have no intention of paying tax on re-imb for fast food or meals out. they are integral to the job and i do not see them as a 'benefit'. yes i have not had to pay for food for my meal but i wouldn't eat out if it was not for the job and my meals at home cost about £1 per meal as i cook in bulk so i have not saved the re-imb amount by eating out.

on the other hand, clothes, toiletries, food in the supermarket etc... i do consider a benefit and so will pay tax on.

i look at is as anything that isn't instantly consumed and can be taken home is a benefit and tax should be paid.

i know someome who has done their tax return like this for years and not had a problem, despite HMRC going through it with a fine tooth comb one year

in my spread sheet i have a total paid column where i add fee, re-imb, mileage etc.. together and then have a necessary expenses column where i record the consumed food. this column is subtracted from the total amount to work out the taxable amount of pay

I'm taking all this into consideration. But as an example:

I went a music shop. Got a £5 fee and £5 reinbusment. I bought a book for £6.

In the spreadsheet i have done i add up the fee and reinbursment, then minus miles, printing, cost of purchase which leave me with my 'profit'

Is this the way others do it?

I personally don't think the book should be taxable, as i bought it as part of the job, which i would not have been able to perform without the purchase.

Tarasam

misssarahleigh wrote: »

I'm taking all this into consideration. But as an example:

I went a music shop. Got a £5 fee and £5 reinbusment. I bought a book for £6.

In the spreadsheet i have done i add up the fee and reinbursment, then minus miles, printing, cost of purchase which leave me with my 'profit'

Is this the way others do it?

I personally don't think the book should be taxable, as i bought it as part of the job, which i would not have been able to perform without the purchase.

I would refer you all to this:
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/incometax/relief-self-emp.htm

specifically this:

But to be allowable expenditure, it must be 'wholly and exclusively' for carrying on and earning the profits of your business. This means that your sole purpose for the expenditure must be a business purpose.
You can get some private benefit from the expenditure and still get tax relief for the amount spent for your business, as long as either:

• the private benefit was incidental and not the reason for the expenditure
• you can clearly identify and separate the expenditure between business and private purposes

You can deduct the full amount of your allowable business expenditure from your business income to work out your taxable profits.
This guide provides further information on the difference between 'allowable and non-allowable expenses' below.

Hope that helps. As you all know I work for them and this is the clearest guidance I could find.

deedee71

ChefBungle wrote: »

Just seen a telephone job on RE for a "chubby face" call centre. Fee of £3 and reimbursement of £5. They want a call recording and report, and they say the P&P will be reimbursed around a month later.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! I'd be quicker and more profitable just jumping on the bus and going to the shop in town......

I did this one before Christmas and guess what, RE deny all knowledge of the p & p being refunded.

nehpets81

kellyshay wrote: »

But to be allowable expenditure, it must be 'wholly and exclusively' for carrying on and earning the profits of your business. This means that your sole purpose for the expenditure must be a business purpose.
You can get some private benefit from the expenditure and still get tax relief for the amount spent for your business, as long as either:

• the private benefit was incidental and not the reason for the expenditure
• you can clearly identify and separate the expenditure between business and private purposes

You can deduct the full amount of your allowable business expenditure from your business income to work out your taxable profits.
This guide provides further information on the difference between 'allowable and non-allowable expenses' below.

Hope that helps. As you all know I work for them and this is the clearest guidance I could find.

This is interesting - so by my understanding of this sentence, if there is no fee for a job (lets use the Pizza one as an example) then the reimbursement of that pizza should be taxed? So if the reimbursement was £10 for example, £2 of that would have to be paid to the taxman leaving the job looking even less appealing. If there is a fee on top, no matter how small then it could be argued that the reason for the expenditure was not the free pizza but the extra cash.

Is that correct, not sure if I have the right end of the stick - I have looked over the HM customs website and am still a little confused tbh...

jc2703

OK that's two emailed alerts I've received in the last hour and when I've checked there's no new post...any clues? if you're posting and then deleting it can you say so here? just so I know whether my alerts this is goosed Thanks

squidgeum

squidgeum wrote: »

Can anyone access the link for the copy of the questionnaire for the petrol jobs?

Sorry to re-quote myself but I wondered if someone can help me with this please.

vicz123

squidgeum wrote: »

Sorry to re-quote myself but I wondered if someone can help me with this please.

i did these last weekend and i could not access it. if you follow the notes it does cover everything you need to record so no nasty suprises in the questionnaire. annoying though! :mad: