Travelling international and what to claim

[morphe]

Hi,
I have never travelled abroad before with the business and was wondering what I can and can't do.
I was thinking of going to New York in January for a week, I am planning to walk the shops to see what is popular over in the US.
Is it ok to do this? is there a limit I can spend on hotels and food, taxis etc..

 

[MyAccountantOnline]

@morphe is your business a sole trade or limited company?

 

[MrGerbil]

Is this really a business trip? It sounds like you just want to have a week in NY and get a tax deduction or it.

 

[morphe]

Limited company. We want to walk around the shops to see what looks good and if we can do something similar. To get ideas.

 

[WaveJumper]

Whilst working for a very large fashion retailer I had colleges in the buying departments who would fly all over the world looking at new trends, some lucky ones would be in the South of France checking out the latest swimwear (nice gig if you could get it but being part of a buying team saw you away for weeks at a time) They would buy lots of competitors stock as "competition purchases"

I suspect you need to ask yourself could I and my accoutant sit in a room with HMRC and truly justify such a trip (January sounds like a trip to the sales) could it not be done online, could it not be done here in the UK. I think this would be one you need to sit down and discuss with your accountant

 

[The Byre]

Go to a trade fair. That is deductible.

 

[WaveJumper]

Go to a trade fair. That is deductible.

Personally I am thinking about the Miami Boat Show in 2023, but she who should be obaide has put her foot down

 

[japancool]

The founders of Yo! Sushi used to take a yearly trip to Japan to see what the latest trends were there. I don't see why you couldn't justify as a business trip - as long as it really IS a business trip.

Pre-pandemic, I used to travel to Japan a lot, to buy up exclusive merchandise for the business, look for new stock (my second best-selling line came about as a direct result of such a trip) and meet with suppliers. The fact that I may have taken some time to visit a few places of interest was entirely incidental.

 

[MOIC]

Go to a trade fair. That is deductible.

@morphe get a return ticket from New York to Vegas and go to the CES fair for a day, see all the latest tech that you can add to your product range. Jan 5th - 9th.

 

[MyAccountantOnline]

Limited company. We want to walk around the shops to see what looks good and if we can do something similar. To get ideas.

Is the trip wholly and exclusively for company business purposes?

 

[Bobbo]

Limited company. We want to walk around the shops to see what looks good and if we can do something similar. To get ideas.

Who's "we"?

 

[MrGerbil]

Limited company. We want to walk around the shops to see what looks good and if we can do something similar. To get ideas.

Yeah, right. Obviously you just want a holiday subsidised by the taxpayer. We accountants often have clients try it on like this, in much the same way that they claim that their giant screen TV was bought as a computer monitor, or that their £2,000 bicycle was all for work journeys.

 

[MyAccountantOnline]

Yeah, right. Obviously you just want a holiday subsidised by the taxpayer. We accountants often have clients try it on like this, in much the same way that they claim that their giant screen TV was bought as a computer monitor, or that their £2,000 bicycle was all for work journeys.

It sounded like a perfectly genuine question to me -

''I have never travelled abroad before with the business and was wondering what I can and can't do.''

Nothing wrong in asking the question.