Allowable expense?

[soulboy]

Hi,

My wife and I are British citizens, we own a house in London which we rent as furnished accomodation. We both live on a permanent basis in South Africa and are registered as NRL with HMRC. Once a year we visit our property to inspect it and oversee maintenance, repairs etc. Is our return flight to the UK considered an 'allowable expense' for taxation purposes?

[bd6759]

No

[LozaACCS]

It might be, or at least some part of it might be.
The general rule is that the expense must be wholly and exclusively incurred for the purpose of the business, it is likely in this case that some part of the expense does not meet the W&E rule, this is an area where the literal approach to the rule can be relaxed, the burden of proof would be on you to prove that an identifiable part of the expense does meet the W&E rule, that part would then be allowable.

[soulboy]

It might be, or at least some part of it might be.
The general rule is that the expense must be wholly and exclusively incurred for the purpose of the business, it is likely in this case that some part of the expense does not meet the W&E rule, this is an area where the literal approach to the rule can be relaxed, the burden of proof would be on you to prove that an identifiable part of the expense does meet the W&E rule, that part would then be allowable.

Thank you, your explanation is much appreciated.

[bd6759]

You cannot apportion the cost of a journey. It is either solely for the purpose of the business or it is not. You need to look at the journey as a whole, both outward and return. There is no business pupose for the return journey other than to get home.
The journey arises not because you rent out a property in London, but because you live in South Africa.

[LozaACCS]

I could not agree less
I cannot find any merit in this post whatsoever, the purpose of the journey is the guiding criteria, wherever the OP lives, you do seem to have a predilection to making assumptions without ever exploring the facts of the post.

[bd6759]

What is the business purpose of the jouney to South Africa? Try reading Newsom v Robertson,

[The Accounting Studio]

I think you would really struggle with this one.
Maybe the taxi ride from the airport to the house in London

[Syn Gates]

No, travel to Africa is not necessary for your business.

[Lambs]

Hmm. Couldn't agree with Loza more, and with naysayers less.

If a journey be for business purposes, then it be allowable. What some contributors seem to infer (and I do not read this into the original post) is that there is some personal / private benefit to the trip - worse, that this is the (or a) motivation for the journey.

Let's look at

Mallalieu v Drummond [1983] 2 AC 861

courtesy of Lord Brightman:

‘The object of the taxpayer in making the expenditure must be distinguished from the effect of the expenditure. An expenditure may be made exclusively to serve the purposes of the business, but it may have a private advantage. ***The existence of that private advantage does not necessarily preclude the exclusivity of the business purposes.*** For example, a medical consultant has a friend in the South of France who is also his patient. He flies to the South of France for a week, staying in the home of his friend and attending professionally on him. He seeks to recover the cost of his air fare. The question of fact will be whether the journey was undertaken solely to serve the purposes of the medical practice. This will be judged in the light of the taxpayer’s object in making the journey. The question will be answered by considering whether the stay in the South of France was a reason, however subordinate, for undertaking the journey, or was not a reason but only the effect. If a week’s stay on the Riviera was not an object of the consultant, if the consultant’s only object was to attend on his patient, his stay on the Riviera was an unavoidable effect of the expenditure on the journey and the expenditure lies outside the prohibition.’

I don't think that the good doctor would be denied the cost of returning to the UK from the South of France, just because he had the misfortune to live in the UK. Newsom v Robertson may be distinguished on the basis that the taxpayer in that case was trying to give his home primacy over an accepted/established place of work, being his chambers. Consider Horton v Young in the alternative, where there was none but home. I must confess, I am struggling with the concept that the UK let property - someone else's residence, no less - is a place of work.

S, I must admit to making an assumption of my own, which is that the preponderance of your time and effort in relation to the let property orients around your residence in South Africa, such that you can safely argue that the work undertaken in the UK is subsidiary to that. It might be fatal if it were to transpire that you are "hands-off" landlords who take no interest in the property and delegate day-to-day operations to a letting agent, such that your London trip is actually the most that you do; also fatal would be that you came for a week to visit relatives, take in a show, mooch around the property for 5 minutes and then jet back to SA. If, however, you are in regular/meaningful correspondence from SA in relation to the management of the property, but still perceive a need to get "eyes on" once a year to satisfy yourself it's still in one piece, etc., then a claim may be justified. Note that if your motivation for the journey is at least partly to renew acquaintances in Blighty, you're stymied: a particular journey is either business, or it's private: you can't cut a 'plane seat in half. But that was not mentioned in your post.

Regards,

Lambs