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18th August 2008: A quicky, expenses, expenses, expenses
Just a quick Monday post as I didn't get a chance to post Friday. As some of you may have seen, the front page now has a link to a section on claiming expenses, this is what took up my time on Friday.
It started with a thought I had for this blog, I had assumed that the percentage of people claiming expenses through us was reasonably high and was going to make that Friday's topic. As a result I asked someone in IT run a few comparisons for me as evidence. The result was unexpected, apparently only 33% of people using our service are claiming any expenses. This is an exceptionally low figure given that expenses are the main way a person benefits from using an umbrella company model.
If it's a case that you're not in a position to make a legitimate expense claim (click here to see HMRC's criteria for legitimate expenses), there's nothing we (or any umbrella company for that matter) can do to help, but if it's just a matter of the hassle of putting together genuine expenses and receipts each week or month, you're losing out. Even if you spend just £40 a week, over a 48 week year you are missing out on around £750 that you could otherwise be taking home.
I realise at this point I am probably preaching to the converted, but over the next few weeks we will be attempting to encourage those of you that aren't claiming genuine expenses to do so. In this respect some of you may receive calls unnecessarily, and I hope you can forgive us for that, we're just trying to reach everyone that hasn't claimed recently, ensuring that you take home what you are entitled to.
Thanks for reading, and if any of you need a blank expense form, you can download one here.
Hugo
18/08/2008
