Legal and professional costs that a business incurs are allowable when they directly relate to trading. Therefore the legal fees incurred in attempting to recover trade debt owed by this customer are therefore allowable for tax purposes when establishing your business profit for the year.
In addition, as it is a specific customer against which the bad debt has arisen this will be also be allowable as a deduction when establishing your business profits for the period concerned.
By Jo Nockels
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