Employee Per Diem & Overnight rates versus inflation?

saintdan123

Hi All,

Couldnt find anything relatable post recent inflation, so thought I'd ask...

Looking for advice or recently UK guidelines on meal allowances and per diem payments for working away.

I regularly work away, and the rates are low and have not changed in years. I'm finding that my £30 daily limit doesn't cover three value meals a day, and am of the opinion that an added £15 per night away isn't any motivation to be away from home and family.

As a guide, i'd leave home before 7am, work until 5pm and then be put up in a paid for hotel ( company hotel card ) before starting work the following morning around 8am.

I've seen HMRC guidance but it seems outdated IMO.

Any suggestions / links appreciated please!

lincroft1710

When I joined the Civil Service over 50 years ago I was told that the meal allowance was not to enable you to buy a meal, but to compensate you for the extra cost of a meal you had to buy compared with what you would normally spend on a meal at home. Whether your employer pays on a similar basis, I don't know.


There's nothing to stop you politely pointing out to your employer that you consider the allowance insufficient given the recent increase in the cost of food. But if they say no what will you do? Refuse to work away? Resign? 

Wonka_2

lincroft1710 said:

When I joined the Civil Service over 50 years ago I was told that the meal allowance was not to enable you to buy a meal, but to compensate you for the extra cost of a meal you had to buy compared with what you would normally spend on a meal at home. Whether your employer pays on a similar basis, I don't know.


There's nothing to stop you politely pointing out to your employer that you consider the allowance insufficient given the recent increase in the cost of food. But if they say no what will you do? Refuse to work away? Resign? 

This with bells on - in UK £30 per day is more than possible even if hotel breakfast isn't included.

But what are you going to do if they don't increase it ?

mark_cycling00

expenses and per-diem are a difficult area because companies can be accused of using them disguised pay but without paying taxes. 

A while back I think that a lot of airlines had to cancel their very generous payments in this area because it was viewed as a taxable perk. So companies now try to keep this at a minimum to avoid embarrassing tax investigations.

Many companies have cancelled "per-diem" payments and replaced them with an annual bonus payment that is fully taxed. This keeps HMRC at bay....

singhini

I was under the impression that if the employer gave more than the HMRC rate on a regular basis then its taxed as a P11d benefit in kind.

Your employer can contact HMRC and agree / negotiate the payment rates but they have to provide evidence as part of the negotiation process.

Where lincroft1710 wrote  "the meal allowance was not to enable you to buy a meal, but to compensate you for the extra cost of a meal you had to buy compared with what you would normally spend on a meal at home."
This was also my understanding (this was exactly what my HR Dpt said to me a few years ago).

Andy_L

saintdan123 said:

Hi All,

Couldnt find anything relatable post recent inflation, so thought I'd ask...

Looking for advice or recently UK guidelines on meal allowances and per diem payments for working away.

I regularly work away, and the rates are low and have not changed in years. I'm finding that my £30 daily limit doesn't cover three value meals a day, and am of the opinion that an added £15 per night away isn't any motivation to be away from home and family.

As a guide, i'd leave home before 7am, work until 5pm and then be put up in a paid for hotel ( company hotel card ) before starting work the following morning around 8am.

I've seen HMRC guidance but it seems outdated IMO.

Any suggestions / links appreciated please!

Would your employer move to receipted actuals rather than a per diem? Keeps HMRC happy & your employer can still impose a cap to stop people going crazy 

TheSpiddalKid

There's two questions here for me. 
1. what is your employer willing to pay?
2. What is your employer permitted to do whilst staying on the right side of payments being non-taxable?

The second question is a factual question and the information will be available via HMRC. This will inform the first question but this is ultimately down to your employer to decide what it wishes to do here, there is no law in this area on minimum payments, such expenses are never going to be sizable enough to impact NMW compliance. 

Undervalued

saintdan123 said:

Hi All,

Couldnt find anything relatable post recent inflation, so thought I'd ask...

Looking for advice or recently UK guidelines on meal allowances and per diem payments for working away.

I regularly work away, and the rates are low and have not changed in years. I'm finding that my £30 daily limit doesn't cover three value meals a day, and am of the opinion that an added £15 per night away isn't any motivation to be away from home and family.

As a guide, i'd leave home before 7am, work until 5pm and then be put up in a paid for hotel ( company hotel card ) before starting work the following morning around 8am.

I've seen HMRC guidance but it seems outdated IMO.

Any suggestions / links appreciated please!

Really? Or are you saying that there is not as much tax free "profit" in it as the used to be!

I would echo the point made by Lincroft1710 and others that the allowance is to cover the extra compared with eating at home. So actually you have c. £40 to play with. Obviously you could easily spend more but you could certainly do it for less.

As for the "motivation to be away from home an family", some jobs require significant travelling. Only you can decide if you would rather have a different job in the same place each day. I never particularly enjoyed travelling for work but I don't see that an extra few quid (if I understand your correctly) suddenly makes it OK.

TBagpuss

Is it expected to cover three meals? If you are leaving at 7 I'd assume that you were eating breakfast before you left, even if you don't, could you not take something with you for breakfast? Or if you are away for more than one day, ask them to book a hotel with breakfast included.  

£30 for lunch and dinner isn't hugely generous, as others have said, it's supposed to cover the difference between the cost of wearing at home and the cost of eating away from home - I'd have thought that a meal-deal sandwich and snacks type lunch for about £5 plus £25 for an evening meal is reasonably do-able. 

I think you can raise it with your employer, and point out how long it is since the amounts have changed, and ask them to review the figures or to switch to a system where they reimburse you subject to a more generous cap.

You an of course also consider trying to negotiate for a higher salary so you feel better compensated over all, and feel more able to spend a bit more if you want to , or to start to look at looking for a different job with less ravel.  But there's no right to a higher amount - it's also pretty common that things like government /tax allowances don't change as quickly as actual costs do - we've had big rises in fell costs but no change to the amounts you can claim tax relief of for business mileage, for instance, and the interest rates on court judgment debts hasn't changes despite falls (and later rises ) in interest rates. 

Andy_L

TBagpuss said:

Is it expected to cover three meals? If you are leaving at 7 I'd assume that you were eating breakfast before you left, even if you don't, could you not take something with you for breakfast? Or if you are away for more than one day, ask them to book a hotel with breakfast included.  

If you do that you can't claim the full £30 as its broken up and has to be reduced for any meals that are paid elsewhere

£30 for lunch and dinner isn't hugely generous, as others have said, it's supposed to cover the difference between the cost of wearing at home and the cost of eating away from home - 

HMRCs policy for receipted actuals is that you don't need to deduct anything saved by not eating at home which suggests they think this is supposed to cover the full cost.
Equally how much is saved is a very variable number. The OP has a family so the marginal cost of them not eating is low - just the ingredients and washing up one less place setting compared to a single person who avoids the while cost. Should there be a difference in the assumed eating at home cost to reflect that or that one shops at LidAldi while the other shops at Waitrose?

I'd have thought that a meal-deal sandwich and snacks type lunch for about £5 plus £25 for an evening meal is reasonably do-able. 

I'd agree that enough, balanced, calories for a full day is doable. But not in a "cooked breakfast, cooked lunch, 2 course evening meal" (do many people eat like that normally?) one or two is going to have to become a snack meal

saintdan123

Thank you all for your responses, appreciated, and a few good points raised there that I will be acting on.