Unhelpfully, UK law says that “you can claim for expenses incurred in the course of running your business” and there is no further explanation! The reality is that a working practice has evolved and both the tax office, and accountants as a whole, have a feel for what is right.
The main thing to bear in mind is "do my costs go up because I am running a business"? If that happens then the chances are that you can claim for the additional cost. So the two notable exceptions (when running a new business from the spare room at home) are your council tax and your mortgage payments. If they stay the same whether you have a business or not, then it's going to be hard to justify making a claim.
The easiest way for you to judge the authenticity of any expense item is to use the "senior manager test".
Imagine your business has grown. It's really big . . . it's gone national! You have 1,000 staff and they are managed by about 20 senior regional managers. Your senior managers claim back their expenses. Clearly, you do not want to reimburse them for expenses unless they are truly of a business nature.
You have a gut feeling for what's right and what's wrong. So, consider your "questionable" item. If you would honestly make the reimbursement to one of your senior managers, then it's probably OK to claim that sort of expense in your own small business. And if your "questionable" item fails the "senior manager test" don't put it through.
We all vary! We are all risk takers and risk averse to a different extent.
It's your call.
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