Executive Recruitment
Expenses… fact or fiction?
You cannot have failed to have seen the recent headlines about MP’s expenses and few people that I have spoken to fail to have an opinion on it! It’s not surprising that there has been so much publicity when you look at the items claimed which appear to include mattresses, pillows, bath robes, hotel expenses, repairing toilet seats etc.
But, how much does this differ from expenses claims amongst private sector workers? A lot I hear you cry!
Well, whilst many of us cannot believe some of the items being claimed and funded at the taxpayers expenses, particularly when most of us adhere to the common rule that the expense must be wholly and exclusively for business purposes and be subject to the Company’s expenses rules.
But, it is not just the MP’s that are having to account for some of their recent expense claims as it is not uncommon particularly in this climate for employee’s expense claims to be scrutinized. As employees face hard times financially, then there may be more of an incentive for them to make further inflated expense claims. Further investigation often finds that more of us than we might care to admit make the occasional ‘debatable’ claim. Indeed, various surveys over recent years have shown that astonishingly one in five employee’s have fraudulently claimed more expenses than those due to them.
I have seen some very interesting policies in my time in particular one local business that has had some rather extravagant claims in the name of client entertaining! But the serious point in all of this is that employees must remember that a breach of the company expenses policy may result in disciplinary action and wrongly claiming even basic expenses such as mileage may be grounds for gross misconduct. It goes without saying that if you are leaving your employment then it is a good idea to get your expenses claims in before your leaving date. It’s an obvious but much ignored point that expenses should stop when you leave and this includes racking up a mobile phone bill on a company phone after leaving even if they did not disconnect it.
Remember, those few extra miles on the monthly expenses claim or the handful of receipts that are ‘kind of’ in relation to business are the thin end of the wedge and perhaps not too far removed from the MP who allegedly claimed expenses from us the taxpayer for the cleaning of his moat
For more information please contact Nigel Brewster: T:01302 367 444 E: nigel.brewster@sewellm.co.uk