Training Costs - Tax allowable ?

[D 129]

Has anyone out there had any success with this topic ?

I'm UK based and am currently part way through JAA ATPL ground school.

It's tax return time of year again and I got to thinking "wouldn't it be nice" if the thousands of pounds that I am spending on training costs could be offset against my future income as a pilot.

i.e. - Get a large part of my training costs refunded albeit a year or two down the line.

I made some brief enquiries a while back - thought about setting up a company to incurr the costs now and earn fees / employ me later. The small advice that I received was that "it can't be done in the U.K. - expenses are only allowable when you are employed ..." and "one man companies were abused a
lot in the past - so nothing is available now ...".

If you have managed to solve this one, I'd love to hear from you !

Thanks,

D 129

[Whirlybird]

I asked my accountant about this last year. He suggested trying it. He said to fill in a self assessment form saying I was in business as a helicopter pilot, and put that I was still training, but in the bit for info ON THE SECOND PAGE. According to him, that way they might not query it, as they rarely look beyond the first page. They only have 18 months to query it, he said, after that they have to accept it. And he assured me the worst that could happen would be that they told me I couldn't do it. So far I've heard nothing, and am about to claim more expenses for this year. In a year or two I might have your answer. But it seemed worth a try.

Maybe both of us will get a beter answer here.

[Megaton]

This subject has been discussed before so it's worth having a bit of a rummage round. General consensus was that flying training is not an allowable expense. I can't remember exactly how the argument ran but it seemed convincing at the time.