Hi Sally,
Your are lucky I happen to be working late too! It must be January...
The governments "List 3" "
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) list of professional bodies and learned societies with tax-deductible fees" is referred to on the HMRC manuals online..
Quote:EIM32881 - Other expenses: professional fees and subscriptions: List 3: list of statutory fees and approved bodies
Sections 343 and 344 ITEPA 2003
Details of statutory fees and contributions to certain named bodies (see EIM32890) and the subscriptions to approved bodies (see EIM32900) are shown in
List 3.
The list is periodically updated. Where a body has only recently been approved it may not appear in the current edition of List 3 but a member will be entitled to a deduction from earnings from an employment. (This text has been withheld because of exemptions in the Freedom of Information Act 2000)
List 3 shows the title of the body, the nature of its activities where not clear from the title, and the first year for which relief is admissible. The annual subscription is not shown. You can normally accept the amount claimed by the taxpayer.
In some cases, only a part of the subscription is deductible. Members will have been informed of the amount admissible by the bodies concerned. Normally, no enquiries need be raised regarding the amount claimed.
But rather unhelpfully with no links to it in HMRC's manuals.
However as everything is migrating over to .Gov.uk it can now be found there as you can see from the link I have added further up the post.
HMRC's manuals state
Quote:EIM32885 - Other expenses: professional fees and subscriptions: trade union subscriptions
Sections 336 and 344 ITEPA 2003
Subscriptions to trade unions and other comparable bodies are not deductible under
Section 336 ITEPA 2003, even where membership is required by the employer. The expense is not incurred in the performance of the duties, see EIM31650. Nor is it necessarily incurred, see EIM31645.
A deduction can be given under Section 344 ITEPA 2003 if certain conditions are met, see EIM32900.
I had reason to double check this recently myself.
I had a new client inform me that was convinced that annual subscriptions to the
GMB "General Municipal Boilermakers" was tax deductible.
The answer is that it is a General Union that is not on what was called "List 3" and therefore the membership fees are not tax deductible.
It took some convincing as new the client genuinely knew better but once he saw the reference material he accepted it was not tax deductible.
Sadly the Unions don't make this point absolutely clear in the literature to members (I wonder why...) as far as I am aware so no doubt lots of members are incorrectly claiming tax deductions.
I hope that helps...
TG
Edited by user 21 January 2016 00:14:25(UTC)
| Reason: typo
