No expenses at all?
So you'd be happy if as part of your job you have to buy something/had an out of pocket expense and were expected to pay for it yourself? (I don't know, such as parking fees because your boss expected you to go work at a different site for 8 hours, with parking at £2-5 an hour? or drive something from site A to B via a toll road/bridge/ferry).
Fortunately HMRC has a different view...
What £1000 taxi ride?
Unless you're referring to IIRC a one of, charge for a car with driver (I believe there was one such case in the last lot of expenses) for staff whilst abroad.
From memory that was car + driver on call for something like 4 days, which would have allowed the person using it to get around an unfamiliar area, quickly, safely and arrive where needed fresh in a country that drives on the other side of the road to us.
IIRC it was someone who was out there going from meetings at odd times of the day/night on business, and travelling fairly long distances by car (in some areas that are/were near places that it's not a good idea to get lost in).
Again as an expense it can be quite reasonable, especially if that car + driver allowed the persons using it to keep working whilst on the move (oddly enough when someone is being paid a good wage it can work out much cheaper to pay for them to be driven so they can work on the move), and probably save on hotels again, not to mention car hire on it's own can be fairly expensive, let alone taxis who may/may not be available at all times, and to arrive relatively fresh at appointments and able to concentrate fully on what they are being paid to do, rather than arriving after potentially an hour+ of driving on unfamiliar roads, with local laws that you may not be fully aware of (does this area have a turn right on red rule?) and not being able to give important decisions your full attention.
Again HMRC says that's legitimate, and it's the sort of thing that from what I've heard from sources other than the Murdoch Media is extremely unusual in the BBC as they are, to coin a phrase, tighter than a ducks posterier.
It's telling that the average expenses for all the BBC top execs worked out as something like £20 a day (or was it week?), despite all their "excesses" and "partying on the tax payers money".
