Personal calls on company PDA are my responsibility, is this deductible?

malocao

Hi all, some advice please,

My employer provides a PDA (BlackBerry) for me, and pays the bills. The firm requires me to offset the cost of any personal calls against my expense claims (for travel etc). So for example
- Business miles = 100 @ company rate of 25p/mile = £25.00
- Personal calls = £5.00 offset
- Expense claim paid = £20.00

Can I claim this offset for personal calls as a deductible expense of employment? (I already know that I can claim the excess of HMRC's mileage rate over the company rate.)

If you know the answer, it would be really helpful if you can please provide a reference.

Thanks.

agrinnall

You want US to pay for YOUR personal calls? I don't think so.

thenudeone

Your employer is charging you £5 a month to allow you to make personal calls on the company's telephone.

You don't need to make personal calls to be able to do your job, do you? Therefore it is not an allowable expense for tax purposes. Simples.

ceeforcat

And here is your reference!

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/incometax/how-to-get.htm#1
Allowable expenses

You can only get tax relief for allowable expenses. Expenses are allowable if they're for the cost of:

• travelling you had to do whilst doing your job
• other expenses you had to pay whilst doing your job - and which related only to doing your job

Regshoe

I think this question may have been borne out of the fact that companies can (if they choose to) provide employees with 1 mobile that they can use as much as they like for personal use without a taxable benefit arising. It just doesn't work the other way - you can't claim for them not giving you a tax free benefit.

malocao

Thanks to all who replied and particularly to Regshoe - you're exactly right about the thought behind my question.