Good morning! I am a sole trader. I have recently been away for business on a short contract where I was paid a fixed weekly allowance to cover meals & accommodation. The allowance was not enough to cover accommodation so I paid the excess myself.
My question is for tax, can I claim all of my expenses for the week or some of them that took me over the allowance limit?
Basically when you are sole trader anything you and paid relating to duties performed or associated costs is normally classified as sales for tax and vat purposes (note there can be exceptions to this general rulehere)
Practicably speaking you shouldn't really refer to the money received as a "fixed weekly allowance" - this is basically additional sales that are added onto your other sales when calculating your turnover.
Ok now that is taken care of as bd6759 advises your expenses are what they are and they are claimed based on what you have paid out - it makes no difference if your actual expenses are more than your "received allowance sales income" . That's business sometimes costs outweigh income for certain items hmrc don't have a problem with that as long as everything is on a commercial basis.