Professional body membership fees

[Ray Singh]

My wife and I are long term members of professional bodies such as the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) and Society of Biology.

Both our current work places are large organisations have policies in place that state that will not pay the membership fees for any professional bodies.

Arguably, it is in the interest of the employer to have staff with these memberships. Both ours are for chartered status. The IET membership is around £200/year.

I have been told that it is possible to claim this fee back via a tax return form. Please can anyone help advise me on this. I am not a contractor, and don’t understand how a ‘permie’ can claim this back.

Thanks.

[mikef]

You know on your tax return where it says
Employment expenses
19 Professional fees and subscriptions
?
It goes there

[Ian Lancs]

This worked for me - http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/incometax/how-to-get.htm
Think I rang my tax office, they took details and confirmed it was going to work, sent me form, filled in and new tax code arrived a few weeks later for the next year.

[Siscar]

You can't claim them back but you can claim tax relief on them, so in effect you get them paid out of your gross income, before tax, rather than from your after tax income.

[Ray Singh]

Thanks. Mikef - yes I am a bit slow....
I have never filed a tax return - so thanks for your help.

I will call the tax office on Monday.

Is it just the tax that can be claimed back or the whole fee?

[Siscar]

Ray Singh said:

Thanks. Mikef - yes I am a bit slow....
I have never filed a tax return - so thanks for your help.

I will call the tax office on Monday.

Is it just the tax that can be claimed back or the whole fee?

You tell them what you paid and they adjust your tax code accordingly. If it's £200 you don't get £200 back, your tax code essentially allows you to earn £200 more before you start paying tax.

[Eric Mc]

Employees can claim ANY expense THEY pay for that is incurred "wholly, exclusively and (MOST IMPORTANTLY) NECCESSARILLY as part of their employment".

If it is required as part of your employment that you must be a member of a specific professional body, then any subscription you pay to retain that membership IS allowable.

HOWEVER, if the professional qualification was not absolutely required for the particular employment, then you CANNOT claim the subscription cost for tax purposes.

[The Leaper]

I claim my professional membership fees against tax by simply filling the details in the "any other" box on the self assessment form. Works every year.

R.

[Baron Von Alders]

On a slight tangent, does anyone get any great value out of their membership fees?

I'm CIMA qualified and apart from getting a magazine a dozen times a year that I don't read I don't seem to get much for my circa £240.

I've never been asked "am I a member" at job interviews, just asked to show that I'm qualified which my certificates do for that.

So seriously thinking of binning it off (despite the previous mentioned claiming on tax return, which I do)

Any thought for and against keeping?

[Ray Singh]

From my point of view, it is what I need to keep paying to keep chartered engineer status. Do i get value from the £200, no not really.

I will investigate if i can pay the UK engineering council a reduced fee rather than pay £200 to the IET every year.

[Siscar]

Ray Singh said:

I will investigate if i can pay the UK engineering council a reduced fee rather than pay £200 to the IET every year.

I can save you time and effort on that one by telling you that you can't. They work solely through PEIs (professional engineering institutions)

[944fan]

Ray Singh said:

Thanks. Mikef - yes I am a bit slow....
I have never filed a tax return - so thanks for your help.

I will call the tax office on Monday.

Is it just the tax that can be claimed back or the whole fee?

If you don't already do a return, do you really want that each year for the sake of tax relief on £200? Unless your tax circumstances are relatively simple.

I would sooner stick pins in my eyes that have to fill out my return in each year.

[Countdown]

Baron Von Alders said:

On a slight tangent, does anyone get any great value out of their membership fees?

I'm CIMA qualified and apart from getting a magazine a dozen times a year that I don't read I don't seem to get much for my circa £240.

I've never been asked "am I a member" at job interviews, just asked to show that I'm qualified which my certificates do for that.

So seriously thinking of binning it off (despite the previous mentioned claiming on tax return, which I do)

Any thought for and against keeping?

for a "qualified" post we would always expect a person to be a CCAB "member" rather than just somebody who qualified and then left, because it means they should have kept up with their CPD.

[sumo69]

You can also reclaim for up to 4 years as well as having your tax code adjusted for the current year to give you tax relief at source. A letter to your tax district setting out the appropriate professional body and the amount paid during each tax year does the job.

Assuming the subscription was £200 per annum, the rebate for a 40% tax payer for each of the 4 years would be £320 ( 4 x £80).

David

[GadgeS3C]

If you don't pay the membership fee then you (I believe) aren't allowed to call yourself a Chartered Engineer (or whatever).

I can see the argument that you've met the standard for CEng status but how would you describe that on your CV and at an interview?

[northandy]

944fan said:

If you don't already do a return, do you really want that each year for the sake of tax relief on £200? Unless your tax circumstances are relatively simple.

I would sooner stick pins in my eyes that have to fill out my return in each year.

Hmrc will just adjust the tax code for future years, you just need to tell them when you stop paying it. They seem to discourage issuing tax returns unless neccesary.

Op as others have said you can claim for prior years also.

[Eric Mc]

northandy said:

Hmrc will just adjust the tax code for future years, you just need to tell them when you stop paying it. They seem to discourage issuing tax returns unless neccesary.

Op as others have said you can claim for prior years also.

That's why the number of people needing to complete Self Assessment tax returns goes up every year

[northandy]

Eric Mc said:

That's why the number of people needing to complete Self Assessment tax returns goes up every year

Is that population related though or due to tax requirements?.

I don't have particularly tricky tax affairs, some pension relief, mileage relief, dividend income, etc. but whenever I have asked to complete one rather than the annual rigmarole of writing to them to say my pension contribution changed etc they refuse to put me on self assessment and will adjust my tax code, so pretty much every year it's wrong due to changes.

[Eric Mc]

northandy said:

Eric Mc said:

That's why the number of people needing to complete Self Assessment tax returns goes up every year

Is that population related though or due to tax requirements?.

I don't have particularly tricky tax affairs, some pension relief, mileage relief, dividend income, etc. but whenever I have asked to complete one rather than the annual rigmarole of writing to them to say my pension contribution changed etc they refuse to put me on self assessment and will adjust my tax code, so pretty much every year it's wrong due to changes.

Tax requirements. More and more people are now higher rate taxpayers - partly because of inflation creep and also because the government has, for two years running, reduced the threshold where people start paying higher rate tax.

Moving into higher rate is often a point where self assessment becomes necessary. For instance, if you are a higher rate taxpayer, you will need some mechanism to account for and pay the additional tax you will need to pay on bank interest received or dividends received.
It is also a good mechanism to ensure a higher rate taxpayer gets the correct tax relief on charitable donations and personal pension contributions.

Another reason why more self assessments are now required is because of the introduction of the Child Benefit claw back for those earning over £50,000/£60,000 per annum.

HMRC can be very stubborn when they decide they don't want you to complete an SA return. I had one client where I submitted a paper return three years running before they relented and acknowledged that the best solution for him was to submit regular SA returns.
You CAN submit an SA return even if you haven't been given the special UTR number (Unique Tax Reference) that is required for on-line filing.

You can get an accountant to generate a paper SA tax return for you which can then be submitted by post before the 31 October paper filing deadline. You already will have tax references that are perfectly usable by HMRC to correctly identify you (your NI number and your PAYE reference).

I am a great fan of SA because it puts the taxpayer in control of their tax affairs and the discipline of having it completed is a good exercise in checking that matters such as PAYE are being conducted correctly.

[cossey]

Siscar said:

Ray Singh said:

I will investigate if i can pay the UK engineering council a reduced fee rather than pay £200 to the IET every year.

I can save you time and effort on that one by telling you that you can't. They work solely through PEIs (professional engineering institutions)

I'm sure there was an opportunity to get registered with the UK Engineering council as well as the PEI when you get Chartered. That means you should be able use the CEng postscript etc but not CEng MIET even if you do not keep up with the membership.

You are right in that you can only apply through a PEI though so you would have to join, get Chartered, then leave/give up your membership

I have never bothered checking though as I can get work to pay for it.