how do you work out tax deductions for food?

[BooyHoo]

it wouldn't make sense to do two separate food shops, one for family and one for mindees. do you have to work out the cost per meal per child?

Hope this helps:

www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/bimmanual/BIM52751.htm

Any reasonable calculation of cost per meal will be ok:

A packet of 10 fish fingers costs £1.25. If a child eats 2 fish fingers then the cost is 2/10 x £1.25 =
25p. A 500g packet of frozen chips costs £1, then a 100g portion would cost 100/500 x £1 = 20p.
One yoghurt costs 30p. The cost of the food for this meal is 75p.

There is no flat rate allowance for the cost of a meal since no 2 childminders will incur the same costs. Reasonable estimates for the costs of food and drink provided for the children being cared for are acceptable and receipts would not be required.

Emma
www.ejaccounting.co.uk

thanks emma, that's great.

Emma has given one way of working it out which works well if you have varying numbers of mindees on different days. The other way is to take your weekly shopping bill, take off everything that is not childminding related (and ignore it), take off everything that is wholly for childminding (play materials, wipes, nappies if relevant) and claim that in full, then divide the rest by the number of meals taken by mindees divided by the total number of meals.

As Emma says, any reasonable estimate is allowable but these are the two main methods used.

thank you mranchovy. i hadn't thought of doing it that way. i can see myself attatched to the calculator for the forseeable!