Dentists Who Invest Podcast

Which Dental Courses Are Tax Deductible? [2025 Edition] with Mike Bryan

• Dr. James Martin • Season 3 • Episode 328

Share episode

You can download your FREE report on how you can avoid financial mistakes as a dentist using the link just here >>>  dentistswhoinvest.com/podcastreport

———————————————————————
Ever found yourself wondering if your latest dental course or training in something like macro photography qualifies for tax relief? Mike Bryan, an expert accountant with a knack for understanding HMRC’s tricky rules, is here to clear it all up for you. From exploring how your courses could qualify as tax deductible to diving into the “wholly and exclusively” rule, Mike breaks it all down in simple terms.

We cover the ins and outs of claiming tax relief for professional development—whether you’re a self-employed dentist with a bit more flexibility or an NHS-employed pro navigating stricter rules. Mike gives you the lowdown on claiming things like professional subscriptions and even dental indemnity insurance, including some sneaky ways to cancel unnecessary policies.

If you want to make sure you’re not missing out on any tax-saving opportunities, this episode is your go-to guide for navigating the ever-evolving world of dental tax relief.

———————————————————————
Disclaimer: All content on this channel is for education purposes only and does not constitute an investment recommendation or individual financial advice. For that, you should speak to a regulated, independent professional. The value of investments and the income from them can go down as well as up, so you may get back less than you invest. The views expressed on this channel may no longer be current. The information provided is not a personal recommendation for any particular investment. Tax treatment depends on individual circumstances and all tax rules may change in the future. If you are unsure about the suitability of an investment, you should speak to a regulated, independent professional.

Send us a text

Dr James:

It is, my course, taxi Doctor. Well, I can't believe it's taken us so long to make this podcast, but you know what Good timing, because some things have changed on that front, some things that we need to know about. I've got the man with the knowledge in here in front of me today, mr Mike Bryan, accountant extraordinaire. Let's just jump straight in, shall we, Mike?

Mike:

Awesome. Thanks, James, nice to be here. Yeah, let's go for it. So I mean, we get this question asked a lot, okay, you guys, as dentists, you get chucked in at the deep end and that you're needs all your dentistry but also all of your business and everything else associated with it very quickly because you're self-employed very quickly, okay, compared to the medics. The medics obviously take a lot longer to get through their employment window compared to you guys that have one year of FD after your your degree. So we get this asking asked a question asked a lot, and the the rule is is it wholly and exclusively for the purpose of your trade? And that is open to interpretation, and HMRC love a grey area okay, grey, because it's not black and white and people need to apply the taxation rules or guidance to their circumstances. So first of all, we're talking about self-employed dental associates or principals here and let's look at two ends of the spectrum, because the spectrum is easy to kind of guide people, and then we'll look at everything in between.

Mike:

So if a client comes to me and says, um, oh, I'm thinking of doing a thousand pound CPD course on rubber dams or something like that and how that works, then I think that's clearly dentistry orientated. It's going to be building on existing knowledge. Uh, it gets your CPD marks. I've got absolutely no concern that that will be allowed against your dental income and therefore an allowable expense. And we flip it to the complete other side of the spectrum. Oh, Mike, I'm thinking of going down the route of Max Fax. I've got my dental degree. Now I need to go and do my medical degree. Can I go and expense that, my medical degree? Can I go and expense that? Well, that is a new area, it is a new industry. It is outside dentistry. Okay, you move from dentistry to medical um, and therefore the guidance there would be. No, you can't claim that. And similarly other you know weird and wonderful things. People want to get out of dentistry and go on to I I don't know a property investor, renovation or tree surgery, something completely outside dentistry. It's clear that this has nothing to do with dentistry and that you cannot get tax relief on that. The reason it's new knowledge, you're entering a new market, it's a new industry, you're seeing new people that you wouldn't have seen by being a dentist, and then you've got everything in between and everything in between, um, there's loads of different connotations and loads of different examples that I can give you.

Mike:

I think the the first one to to touch on is your endoprostoperio uh, implant, those kind of specialist areas where you're still seeing people with teeth issues. Okay, that's fundamental to me. Um, it's inside the mouth. People have an issue with their teeth or their mouth. Um, you therefore aren't seeing a new type of person. Okay, you might be seeing with someone with a bit more, uh, severe issue, but you're still seeing someone with a dental problem. Um, is it a new qualification? We do go on to the specialist register, which would probably be a tick in hmrc side to argue against this, but you're still building knowledge imparted whilst you're at dental school. You've still all touched on this whilst you were doing your university. Um, it's still teeth orientated. So there's no right or wrong.

Mike:

I'm not going to sit here and say, yes, you can definitely claim all of these course costs against your tax. You need to take advice, you need to speak to your accountant, but I certainly have clients that have claimed their endo masters and you know expensive implant courses and with that, the advice is you've got this thing called a white space disclosure note on your tax return and people would say why do you ever want to make a disclosure to hmrc? Why do you want to give them more information? Well, if you um aren't open and honest and transparent with this cost, then hmrc have a window of six years. Okay, they can go back six years in question of being in your tax return. If, however, you put a white space disclosure note saying I've spent 10 grand on this course I think it's you know, check the wording with your accountant but I think this course is allowable because of x, y or z, and that window actually shortens to 12 months. So it's just a little trick of the trade there to shorten the timeframe that HMRC have to ask questions on this particular expense and therefore, if it's an expensive course, we would advise putting a white space disclosure note in there.

Mike:

Then I think the next one to touch on is facial aesthetics.

Mike:

It's probably the biggest query that I get in terms of my clients and looking at courses, because I generally think people understand that dental courses get tax relief.

Mike:

Facial aesthetics you are, in my opinion, seeing a different type of person, seeing a different type of person. Okay, you're going from someone that's seeing it, that's that's clearly got dental issues, to someone that potentially has cosmetic issues or, yeah, once could cosmetic treatment, um. So you know, if you take yourself out of the dental practice and putting yourself in a spa setting or a facial aesthetic setting, I think you're clearly moving away from what your your day-to-day bread and butter is, which is seeing people in a dental practice with dental issues. So that may be one step too far, and if people think it is, then the advice is to do a cheaper course first to build that knowledge. Don't get tax relief on that first course To then do a more advanced course afterwards which is then building on the costs um sorry, the knowledge imparted on that first course. So then you've got the second course, a more expensive course allowed for tax, and you'll then get tax relief on that and that will offset your your facial aesthetics income.

Dr James:

There we are, which makes sense. That's a little workaround, right.

Mike:

A little workaround there. Yeah, exactly. So if you're going into a new industry, then yeah, your initial course to be imparting the knowledge and then the secondary course to be the one building on the knowledge imparted at the first course.

Dr James:

Excellent, so you've given us a really good level. And as to the stipulations, as to how that looks, a few more cues coming up, or is there anything more to add on what we just said?

Mike:

We'll go for the cues and then we'll add more onto it once we're done with the questions.

Dr James:

Well, I guess the big one for me is I know that you and I are catching up off camera, and I know that the way this works has somewhat changed recently, in that once upon a time it was very discreet If you're a dentist, you have to do dental courses to get tax relief. If you're a principal or a business owner or self-employed, you have to do dental courses, whereas now it's not so much like that. I mean, there can be certain examples where certain other courses surrounding the knowledge that will be able to allow you to do your job very well as a dentist may also be allowable as well yeah, for sure, absolutely, and this was actually changed, uh, last march or march before.

Mike:

So it was changed in the last 24 months.

Mike:

I feel like it was march 24 I think I'm sure it was this year, you know, because I remember you saying, anyway, we're gonna yeah um, where hmrc have have kind of confirmed that the ancillary things that one business owner needs to do in order to run their business will now be allowed against their tax. So we're not still not talking new trades, we're still not talking new industries or anything that's big ticket stuff here, but we are talking about things like bookkeeping is the example that hmrc give. Okay, you, you need to run your business and therefore you need to be able to have the ancillary skills, the admin, the other bits and pieces um available to you to get the job done. So, so, bookkeeping, you know how to keep your records in order, how to perhaps um start start doing your own bookkeeping, if that's something that you wanted to do. Take another example that I thought about photography in dentistry.

Mike:

Okay, historically, I'd always say, uh, look, if you want to get tax relief on your photography course as a dentist, it should probably be dental specific, ie, a dentist is providing training on how to do good photography for dentists.

Mike:

Now, I think it would be acceptable if you're finding a course that is, you know, focusing on on macro photography not necessarily just for dentists, though, but for other people, whereas it would have been a bit blurred before, whereas now I think it's probably probably fine. Think of other things, um, certainly look, think of the more admin roles that you've got to do. So if you have need to go anything into compliance or anything like that, yes fine. Hr you could probably get an argument to say that actually some hr training in your business wouldn't be a bad thing. Probably probably more for principals and associates, because you're employing people. Cash flow forecasting, those kind of business-y kind of oriented courses certainly would be a bit more looked at a bit more favourably by HMRC. Yeah, so things that help you run your business not just dentistry now can, I think, can be claimed excellent.

Dr James:

How often does hmrc cut us some slack?

Mike:

doesn't seem like it's very often, and the positive or negative with this is that hmrc haven't taken any of these courses to the, to the tribunals, ie it's never gone and been tested, especially the big ticket stuff. Obviously, no one would bother taking £1,000 worth of course expenses to the courts. You'd either accept it or reject it. It's just not worth it. But the big ones you know your big ortho or endo courses hasn't been tested, so we're waiting for that day. It always gives us a nice indication of HMRC's thoughts on it, but it hasn't been tested at this moment in time.

Mike:

As far as I'm aware, hmrc still advertise that they check 3% of every tax return submitted. I haven't seen an HMRC inquiry in the recent years. We have got Brexit, covid, russian war to deal with, so the attention is probably focused elsewhere. But they do suggest they tax, they inquire into three percent of every tax. That means if you work for 30 years you will get one of those 30 years. If you do the maths, uh. They also target specific industry. So dentists were targeted. I think it was in the noughties, so going over 15 years ago now, and they will come around again and just pick more dentists to focus their attention on.

Dr James:

Okay, brilliant, so we've covered self-employed. Yeah, not just self-employed, but business owners.

Mike:

Yeah.

Dr James:

And we've covered, obviously, courses that are allowable, courses that aren't allowable, areas in between. So to me, the next natural thing to ask is how does this move around if you're employed?

Mike:

yeah, absolutely so. Let's look at, let's say you're dct, uh, dentist working in hospital, max, fax, medic, whatever, it is solely employed. Um, the rules change massively and this is really unfair. My partner's a doctor and I have this argument with her every year when we do her tax return. Um, in that for an employed person to claim an expense, the expense needs to be incurred wholly, exclusively and necessarily for that employment.

Mike:

And that necessary word is the horrible word because CPD although you would argue that you have to do CPD in order to do your job because you know naturally you need to you need to make sure you are doing the things that the most updated, the most up-to-date guidance legislation, hmrc won't accept your course costs. If you're just employed, they would expect that your employer pays for the employees courses to allow them to do the job. Now we know in the world of the nhs that's never going to happen. Yeah, the nhs are never going to pay for all doctors and dentists courses that they want to go on. But there is a black hole there in that they just can't claim it. It's not allowed and therefore those people have to budget for these courses out of post-tax money, which is unfair. It was looked at at some point in time recently, I think the last four years, hmrc did think about changing the rules, but they didn't.

Dr James:

They backtracked and they left them as they are and one interesting thing that you cleared up for me, just off camera as well, was that people who are employed can still claim certain things that are tax deductible. We're specifically talking about courses right now, because I said to you hey, Mike, but what doesn't stack up for me was how, whenever I was an FD and didn't know anything about finance, somebody told me that you could fill in a form and claim back some expenses, and the specific expense I claimed back was my laundry. So I was like, how does that not apply to courses as well? So, just to be clear, just to be clear, there are certain things you can claim back. It's just that we're not, we just can't claim back knowledge of courses when we're employed exactly that.

Mike:

Uh, to give you the example of what you can think about claiming, when you're just employed, professional subscriptions, gdc, royal college of surgeons. Um, your bda flies in the face of the world because bda clearly isn't necessary for your employment, but it is on what we call list three. If you google list three, there's a long list of professional organizations that are allowed against your tax and BDA meets that. Your indemnity insurance as an FD. James still got his DDU hoodie, by the looks of it yeah, I don't know where just by complete chance I'm wearing my ddu hoodie.

Mike:

I think I've even bought leeds uni dental levers 2016 on the back so so, ddu, give you a hoodie, right, if you sign up with them as an fd, and I think the other one that was mds or whatever it is, give you a yearbook or something like that, if you remember rightly I remember I got a little name tag.

Dr James:

I still still got that name tag.

Mike:

Yeah, nice, it's like £10 or something like that for the year when you're an FD, and then it's like three grand a couple of years later. So they just hooked you. Make sure you cancel one of them, because you obviously don't need both of them once you pass your first year. But yeah, you do get tax relief on your indemnity. It's necessary for your employment.

Dr James:

So you will get tax relief on that nice one. And if you guys like talking tax and learning about how you can be as tax efficient as possible, you might also like our recent two podcasts that we have released on the dentistry invest podcast, covering the changes in the 2024 budget and what it means for dentists. So those episodes are episode 321 with mr johnny minford covering how the budget affects principles, and the other episode we have is episode 322, and that covers what the budget means, not just for principles but for everybody all dentists included in that one and especially focusing on associates.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Dr. James Martin

Host