Can I claim meal expenses when travelling for work all day

[SeekingCivil]

I’m a few weeks into a new job and I am due to travel to see a client next week. I will be out of the house for about 12hours.
No one has mentioned anything about what expenses I can claim and there is no policy (I’ve checked). I know I can claim for fuel.

I looked on the YouGov website and it says one can claim for up to £10 if working away for 10hours or more.

I will be doing more trips like this and I don’t want to be out pocket.

I will ask HR if I know I can claim but want to check first.

We get £13 for the day, £33 for 24hrs. Weird if they don’t have a policy.

Just make a sandwich and take it with you!

This!

I do agree IRL, it makes no odds in reality. But I always assumed it's based a welfare thing based on access to food prep & safe storage.

But aside from that, I dont think the welfare standards and working conditions of 18th century mill workers are still classed as best practice.

I'd have to check.

I am field based and can only claim up to £25 for an evening meal. Same in my last company.

We allow £40 for an evening meal

then I hope you used a competent accountant for your self employed tax return as that opens up a dog's breakfast of potential tax liability of "income" versus "cost"

Not likely you’d get a free lunch for just going on site seeing clients during a work day. Most companies expect you to pack a lunch in a cool box if you don’t fancy a fast food drive through.

taking as read that your employer refuses to pay you ANY expenses when travelling on business for them (it is at their discretion to do so), then you are entitled to claim TAX RELIEF on any travel related expenses you actually incurred whilst on said businesses.

TAX RELIEF means that if you spent £10 on a meal you will receive either £2 (20%) or £4 (40%) as a cash refund from HMRC when you submit a P87 claim form
Obviously based on whether you are a basic rate or higher rate taxpayer (if you are an additional rate taxpayer then your level of ignorance suggests you need to pay an accountant to deal with your affairs as a matter of urgency)

Claim tax relief for your job expenses: Travel and overnight expenses - GOV.UK

Note carefully
You must have spent at least the amount you are claiming for. You cannot claim £10 of tax relief if you only spent £6, doing so would be tax fraud.

I've never worked anywhere that had such prescriptive views on what their employees have for their lunch, surely that's not the case for most people is it?

At my current job they pay the HMRC tax free amounts without the need for receipts according to the hours worked

good
that is the whole point of the tax free "allowances" - it means your employer does not have to incur expensive admin costs in reporting relatively trivial sums of money to HMRC so that HMRC can track whether an employee is potentially in receipt of an "excessive" expenses payment.

Paying the HMRC "approved" rate means HMRC will ignore both you and the employer. Obviously that does open up the possibility that you can make a "profit" by spending less than you are entitled to claim under your employee expenses policy.

Such is life in the eyes of HMRC, simply not worth their time and money in administering a few pennies of tax on such "profits"