My friend is solely self employed. She is a caterer. She had a fall in the kitchen and hurt her back. She experienced immense pain but obviously continued working driving etc. whilst waiting to have an operation on her back. She has had to pay for the operation privately. The question is can she claim part or all of the operation cost in her tax return? As she needed the operation to be able to work pain free. She is off for 8weeks and has had to employ staff to cover this time. Your help on this matter is much appreciated. Thank you in advance.
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No. She may have needed the operation to work pain free, but presumably she was also in pain when she was not working. Dual purpose = not allowable.
I assume that she was unable to recover any costs through her business insurance / employers liability insurance etc??
If she was going to get the operation anyway, and only paid for it privately to have the op done sooner in order to improve business productivity, you might argue that there is no duality of purpose, as in Parsons:
http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKFTT/TC/2010/TC00421.html
Parsons' argument was that the business would have suffered permanent loss of engagement if he had not been able to return to work quickly, so you are nowhere near on all fours.
I'd say not. The question is discussed on here quite frequently. If you search you'll see the discussion and case law.
Yes i did find a similar post to which i posted a comment asking this question. To which i was told off for hijacking! Hence why i have posted this separately.
Well said. You should have done what the rest of us do, if we're "unfairly" challenged. Simply say b****r off!
Obviously not wishing to derail your thread here, your response appears to reference a response which is no longer there? Hopefully, not another disadvantage of the revisions to this site? If it is, I'm sure it'll be brushed under the carpet, as the rest of the imperfections have been.
I'm not sure that Parson's is helpful. He was a stunt performer with very specific skills. The caterer has been able to employ staff to keep the business running.