Second Laptop Expense

[northernladuk]

The above is kind of the opposite I was told by someone running a small book keeping business.

It was explained to me that they apply a level of diligence to find your intentions first. They aren't initially looking to go through every transaction. Just enough to check you are running your business properly. When looking at expenses banging a big bag of receipts on the table is usually enough to move on to the next thing for example.
It's not cost effective to look for the odd item. If they do spot something that might indicate you aren't following the rules properly or have been negligent/fraudulent they'll pull on the gloves and open the lube.

I'd imagine from that leaving something in is more likely go peak his interest and he'd take a lot more interest in the rest, not the other way around.

Dunno if that's true either but makes more sense to me.

[Maslins]

I've heard both. No idea which is "more true".

From the limited number of enquiries we've had, HMRC seem more relaxed than perhaps some people fear. They're not overly bothered about someone incorrectly claiming a £100 expense that wasn't completely. They're bothered about the big losses, and the very easy ones.

Two main types of enquiries/checks we see are:
1) self assessment - HMRC know from some other source that there's a relevant thing not declared. Could be client forgetting they had a student loan, or got child benefit when they earn >£50k, or to give details of a P11D.

Virtually always for these HMRC are correct, client says oops, normally no penalty levied.

2) VAT - often for those clients with mainly overseas sales. I imagine HMRC get concerned at seeing accounts showing £100k sales for the year, and VAT returns showing £nil/negligible VATable sales each quarter. So they query the VAT returns, client shows them sales are to overseas, they say fine and move on.

[DeludedKitten]

It could come to bite me, but I honestly tend not to worry too much about IT Purchases. To be frank, unless it's blatantly personal use (I.e., TV's and such), pretty much anything computery goes via my Ltd.

This.

My company has at least three laptops that I can think of, plus a Chromebook. Two desktop machines, multiple monitors. Some get used more than others, some never get used these days but I haven't got round to scrapping them.

I bought a nice new laptop this month from PC specialist because my main one is too big and heavy to be lugging around when I have to travel to client site. I have no qualms about expensing IT equipment that the business needs, ever.

[Platypus]

2) VAT - often for those clients with mainly overseas sales. I imagine HMRC get concerned at seeing accounts showing £100k sales for the year, and VAT returns showing £nil/negligible VATable sales each quarter. So they query the VAT returns, client shows them sales are to overseas, they say fine and move on.

^ (Almost) exactly this happened to me.

[TheCyclingProgrammer]

^ (Almost) exactly this happened to me.

And me, although in my case it was due to software error. When you're on the FRS you're not supposed to include out of scope supplies (e.g. services to outside the UK) within your flat rate turnover and therefore they shouldn't even go in box 6 of your VAT return. FreeAgent - many years ago now - used to include out of scope supplies in box 6 meaning that the value didn't tally up with the amount of VAT you were declaring and it triggered an enquiry for me. Panned out largely as Maslins said, FreeAgent have since fixed this. This was about 7 years ago mind you.

[d000hg]

It could come to bite me, but I honestly tend not to worry too much about IT Purchases. To be frank, unless it's blatantly personal use (I.e., TV's and such), pretty much anything computery goes via my Ltd.

In reality I do this too though I don't take the pee. There's what you can get away with, what you genuinely buy for use at work, and what HMRC will deem acceptable in an investigation... those probably don't overlap as common sense might dictate e.g. there's stuff you could claim but would feel was daft, and stuff HMRC might balk at which you would argue.