Question about travel expenses on Oystercard

[TondelayoSchwarzkopf]

I have just reg'd as self-employed and have not yet had all the tax info back / expenses guidelines but something keeps bugging me and I wonder if any London freelancers can advise.

How do you submit travel expenses claims (either to your clients or to HMRC) if you use an Oystercard? I am going to meetings at the moment and spending a fair whack on Oyster but I don't know how to track it? I would prefer not to do a separate journey ticket every time as it's much more expensive.

Any advice appreciated as always.

someone will know better than me but you can register your Oyster online. I don't know whether that would record your journeys and the price that comes of your card?

I feel this is a dumb question now I have put it in black and white. I could just ask my 'friendly' (ha) London Underground ticket office person.

I also may have other misunderstandings about HMRC / expenses so will wait for the bumpf.

Thank you Willie for that - I think it is registered as it was previously an employee season ticket and £££££. I will go check.

When you register your oyster online you can print off a record of your journeys monthly and use this for a record of journeys - my govt employer accepts this so hmrc should

How do you pay for it? If through your bank or credit card then that receipt is all you need.

Have a read through this...
cgi3.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewUserPage&userid=talkinpeace

A receipt for the amount you prepay on the Oyster card is no use because that doesn't show either the client or HMRC that any particular sum was spent on their job/business travel generally.

You need to register the card for online usage and then you can print out reports of usage and journey cost deducted from the card, but Oyster seem to make this as hard as possible to actually do. You can start here.

But if your bookings diary shows how many trips into London you had for work you can surely just take that proportion of the monthly oyster bill?

In practice, HMRC don't ask for any evidence. You just give them a total amount of expenses. I assume they do spot checks on a certain % of tax returns so you have to make sure you have it just in case.

dotty, you are right
I've been dealing with the little dears for nearly 20 years and they would MUCH RATHER not trawl through receipts!

Ok. Interesting - thanks for your help.

I whack about £40 a month on my oyster card and claim for that - don't break it down into journeys