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Travel expenses to various work locations & professional fees subscription expense as PAYE

dan201
dan201 Posts: 25 Forumite
Third Anniversary 10 Posts
edited 20 April 2020 at 4:49PM in Cutting tax
Hey guys,
As we all know the 2019/2020 tax year recently ended, so I have several questions regarding whether I can claim some expenses.
I am working freelance in the film industry on short-term PAYE contracts, but NOT as self-employed as per HMRC rules.

Now, I have been wondering if I could claim expenses that were incurred as part of my job, two different ones to be precise:

1) My transport expenses: 
When I am working on film productions, places where I go to work can vary greatly, from only 1 per week if it's in a studio, up to 5 per week (so 1 different per day) when filming on location. Depending on where it is located it can range from £5 (return tube ticket when filming in Central London, as I live in zone 1-2), up to £16-18 return per day when I take the train to go to work in studios such as Pinewood, Leavesden, Shepperton, Langley, etc... Without mentioning additional Uber cost to get to remote work places sometimes, difficult to access by public transport.
Those fees are of course not reimbursed by my employer, and can be pretty high when you add it all up. Can I claim those as expenses? I have read the Employee travel book from HMRC but still don't know where that puts me. The main thing is, what is considered a permanent place of work for me, and a temporary one. Is the film studio my permanent place of work? So I can only claim expenses when filming outside of the studio? Or everywhere? Or nowhere at all?

2)  Agency fee / diary service:
I am subscribed to Calltime Company which is a diary service that facilitates communication between film crews and employers / production companies, which amount to £75 a month and is essential to me finding work. It is not a small amount, and I have read that you can claim that as an expense if the subscription is used only and exclusively as part of your work, which is the case here. However it is not in the "professional" list on the HMRC website. Can I still claim those fees as an expense?

These two expenses combined make for a considerable amount when added yearly. Not even mentioning the financial blur that I'm going through as well as all of my colleagues following the shutdown of all the productions in UK since mid-March, it would be great to retrieve as much as I can as part of my tax refund.

Let me know what you think, thanks in advance for your help.
Dan
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