claiming fuel for unpaid work done

[LMT]

I just wanted to check - say someone who has to do unpaid work in order to make it more likely they'll gain subsequent paid work (eg an entertainer making a name for themselves at charity gigs , open mic nights etc) - they can claim fuel for travelling to the unpaid gigs as well as the paid ones, yes? as its a cost incurred in order to earn money,just not till later. in this instance, the unpaid work led to paid bookings in about 75% of the times freebies were undertaken.

any comments? i see no problem with it especially given how well the "speculate to accumulate" effort has since paid off.....

[mullet]

When I read the title before I opened the post, I thought that this would be an example of someone doing voluntary work and wanting to claim a mileage deduction. The principle there is that deductions cannot exceed the income; i.e. you cannot create a loss through such expenses.

In LMM's scenario I don't think that there is a problem given that the activity is consistent across the paid and unpaid activity and that the overall result is profit. Speculate to accumulate? Yes. A bit like a baker cutting up products and giving out small samples ... OK, a poor analogy but the principle is similar.

If I was keeping records for this sort of activity, I would make sure that the freebies were clearly identified as such and linked to later fee-earning events. Be careful of HMRC though if there is ever an enquiry; they love to trawl through diaries and identify events with expenses incurred but with no corresponding income. So it would also be wise to keep any relevant paperwork/e-mails etc to support events which did not produce income.

[LMT]

she did make a small loss for 10/11 (she didnt get many paid jobs at all for first 4-5 months) but she knows that from early into her 2nd accounting period virtually all gigs were paid. she has made notations in her records to show which unpaid gigs led to paid ones, often at same venue. she didnt even utilise fully her personal allowance in 10/11, so even if she'd made a small profit it wouldnt have made any difference to her tax position for the year. (she got back a few pounds of tax deducted from an employment at start of the tax year)