I was about to say 'how can he afford this?!' but then I pulled out my calculator. If he is a contractor and claims all travel, meals and hotels as business ex

I was about to say 'how can he afford this?!' but then I pulled out my calculator. If he is a contractor and claims all travel, meals and hotels as business expenses, then he basically pays no income tax. As Paul says, he also pays no council taxes/property taxes/etc. So if he averages one flight a week costing $200 (it's 4x more than this to fly across the Atlantic, but 4x less than this to fly inside Europe), then that's only $10,400/year. If he takes red eye flights long haul, then that saves money too because he doesn't need a hotel room for that night. Out of a $100,000 income, that leaves $245 per night for hotel rooms and food and drink. Out of a $60,000 income, that leaves $135 per night for hotel rooms and food and drink. Life is pretty sweet when you don't pay income tax. I wonder whether the tax authorities will consider all of his travel as genuine business expenses and not tax free holidays. This isn't a jibe at him - I hope it's totally legitimate so I can do it too!