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MP EXPENSES REVALATIONS UNDERLINE EXPOSURE OF SOUTH WEST BUSINESS OWNERS TO “NAUGHTY CLAIMS”

Bishop Fleming suggests a “best-practice” formula for Parliament and business

South West business-owners have been urged to check their expenses policies and costs, following revelations about MPs‘ allowances.

Recent headlines have revealed that former Defence Secretary, Geoff Hoon, had built a property empire worth £1.7 million after “flipping” his allowances between various taxpayer-funded properties, while research has also shown than 20 percent of employee travel and expense claims are illegitimate.

Bishop Fleming, the South West accountancy firm with the widest spread of offices throughout the region, has issued guide-notes to owner-managed businesses, aimed at minimising the risk of inflated or false expense claims.

According to Matthew Lee, Managing Partner at Bishop Fleming:  “Parliament, and many public sector bodies, have made the mistake of creating a culture of ‘allowances‘, whereby MPs and staff are encouraged to claim those allowances, rather than focus on the true expenses they have incurred in doing their job.

“Private companies should avoid the ‘allowances‘ formula, which leads to such scams as:
• Claiming an allowance for first-class travel, but buying a standard-class ticket;
• Claiming an overnight allowance, but not staying overnight;
• Claiming allowances for travel, hotels, and meals – without incurring those costs.

“Parliament and the public sector should abandon their long-established formula of paying a pre-determined allowance for travel, accommodation, and subsistence.  And private businesses should avoid that formula like the plague”, said Mr Lee.

“This is one of those rare occasions when private business and the tax-man can speak with one voice:  any expense-claim should be genuine (and supported by receipts), wholly and necessarily incurred in fulfilling the claimant‘s responsibilities.

“It is an outrage that some MPs have manipulated their allowance-based expenses to feather their own nest.  We have all seen similar revelations about public sector and quango employees adopting a similar cavalier attitude to expense-claims.

“At a time of severe business constraint, no private company should be adopting the public sector‘s love of an allowance system:  every expense-claim should be supported by receipts and be proven to be wholly and necessarily incurred in the furtherance of the business”, said Bishop Fleming‘s Managing Partner.

Bishop Fleming teams have helped their clients to spot such questionable expenses claims as:

• Falsified mileage claims;
• Duplicated receipts;
• Fuel claims where the fuel was used for home-purposes;
• Hotel, travel, and subsistence claims that were not incurred for the business.

“This is not a witch-hunt”, said Matthew Lee.

“We are focused on championing our owner-managed clients, who have every intention of repaying their employees for genuinely incurred expenses:  but there is a real danger of some employees believing that they can adopt the same cavalier attitude to allowances and expenses as our MPs.

“How sad is that?” he asks.

ENDS                                         1st March  2010

For further information, contact:Tim Godfrey, Bishop Fleming:  01803-291100 or  David Sturgess, Sturgess Van Damme:  01275-349011 or 07768-078656