UK - Can I buy things for myself through my company?

No.

Purchases for your company are intended to be for your company to perform its function: merchandise that the company sells, equipment that the company needs to function...

Purchases for companies are taxed considerably lower than purchases for people. Your company purchases will be VAT free (you pay it when buying anything, but you get reimbursed for it at a later date) and its cost will mean less profits, so less taxes on profits. That means a loss of revenue for the Exchequer when compared to you buying directly your personal use goods, and you can be required to explain those purchases and be charged with fraud if you fail to satisfactory explain them.

Otherwise, everybody would be setting companies and using those to buy everything.

You can buy clothes through your company if they’re work clothes with your company’s logo on them — safety gear, a uniform, and so on — but not if they’re ordinary clothes that you might reasonably wear when not working.

I don't think this is the best way to approach this problem for reasons mentioned by others - the assets would legally belong to the company so it becomes a bit of a grey area.

However, there is one way you can leverage the company to your benefit: DIVIDENDS.

Currently, you can earn up to £2000 in dividends tax-free (source). For any amount up from there, you are taxed at a much lower rate than you would be if this was paid as income. For example, basic rate income tax is 20% whereas basic rate dividend tax is 7.5%.

The UK Government website gives this example:

Example

You get £3,000 in dividends and earn £29,500 in wages in the 2020 to 2021 tax year.

This gives you a total income of £32,500.

You have a Personal Allowance of £12,500. Take this off your total income to leave a taxable income of £20,000.

This is in the basic rate tax band, so you would pay:

• 20% tax on £17,000 of wages
• no tax on £2,000 of dividends, because of the dividend allowance
• 7.5% tax on £1,000 of dividends

Anything bought with money obtained by paying yourself dividends from the company you are a director of belongs to you, as it was bought with your money.

Dislaimer: I'm in Belgium but from the answers already posted I think some ideas might still be relevant to UK.

First things first, TomTom is very right to advise you to discuss that with your accountant. They can probably better than anybody here advise you on things to do, things to avoid doing, etc... How you choose your accountant will also probably depend on the approach you want to have, from playing strictly by the rules to basically trying to buy everything you buy through company money. I think you shouldn't overlook the importance of having a good relationship with your accountant, having them respect your approach and guiding you with it.

Now, to extend a bit on "how can I turn more company money into personal advantages?", because that's a question I've been asking me in the past 2 years, here are a few examples which may or may not be relevant for you (depending your kind of business, I'm in IT) or for UK, but are I think worth exploring. Please note I'm only mentioning things I have been doing or have seen other freelance friends do without any issue. I can not guarantee how legal this may be at a given time in a given place, but they seem to me to be in some kind of grey zone.

Hardware

Every IT/Multimedia hardware or office material you can think of : Nice desk, nice office chair, top notch computer, printer, smartphone, headphones, network material... Then maybe your meeting room needs a big screen? Or a big table and some chairs? If this meeting room is your living room, this can be convenient... Now there's no meeting without coffee, so you need a coffee machine. And the coffee machine needs coffee, so your company also have to buy coffee.

Software

You can finally legally use this expensive software, reward the developers of that freeware you've been using for years, go "premium" on these cloud services you're using,...

Real estate

Your company could be investing in real estate, buying a house on the seaside for example (or in a foreign country), for it to be rented during the year, and your country house whenever you feel like it. (note: in Belgium doing so is considered a "personal advantage" which is taxed later on). Additionally, your company may simply be paying you (as an individual) a rent for the office space located in your house. Some go up to the extent where your company is actually buying your house, but I'm not a big fan of that approach...

Car

This may well be a very Belgian thing because company cars are a huge thing here, but my (self-owned) company owns my car and pays for any expense related to it (including insurance and fuel). Here also it is considered a "personal advantage" so I'm personally taxed on it as it was part of the salary, but it's nowhere near the cost of the car.

Insurances

My company pays a top notch health insurance for my whole close family. Besides this, I also have some insurance so that if let's say I fall and break both my arms so I can not work, I have a guaranteed income up to several years in the future. Linked to that I have a life insurance/pension plan so that if I die tomorrow the future of my family should be OK financially speaking, and if I happen to live until retirement I'll get additional money on top of "normal" (state issued) retirement money.

Travel

At some point, we may be authorized to travel again... you can probably be creative a bit on that. Attending a conference in San Francisco or simply Amsterdam or Paris can have some side advantages while still being professionally justified. If your company can afford it you can also maybe upgrade your travel experience, going business class instead of eco.

Donations

Maybe you're already, as an individual, helping one or another charity, you can probably help even more with company money. Donations are commonly tax-exempt.

Clothes

I mention it because you do so in your question, but not being much into fashion myself, and usually working in very casual environments, this is such a small budget I don't even want to try putting this on my company. Still it may be possible depending on your kind of business to buy nice suits or shoes or a part of your more casual workwear through your company.

Gifts

It's common practice for companies to offer gifts to associates, clients or prospects. This can include chocolates, champagne, food baskets, retailer gift cards,... whether all of this is actually (fully or partially) given to clients and prospects, and how much of the "leftovers" you actually use for your own benefits is hard to control.

Intellectual rights

Once again maybe a very Belgian thing, but it happens that here the income you get from selling such rights is much less taxed than your salary income. Hence you can "sell" the rights on my intellectual property (a percentage of my company's yearly income) to your company, get that money on your private account, but pay much less taxes on it than if you got the same amount as a salary.

Whatever you do I think the key is to be reasonable, trying to stay below the radar, following the advise of your accountant. At least it's an approach that seems to be working for me.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of wrong answers here. The correct answer is that there is no reason why your company cannot buy something and give it to you. However, this is then "benefit in kind" to you and you must report it in your personal tax return and pay tax as if you have been given its value in cash.

In most cases this means that there is no tax difference between your company providing something to you and your company giving you money to buy it yourself. There are a few exceptions - as Mike Scott says, there are some types of clothing which can be supplied tax free (including, for example, PPE like work boots which become your property but you are not liable for tax on), and food (provided it is equally available to all employees). Consult a tax adviser before relying on any exceptions as there are penalties for getting it wrong and reading about stuff on the Internet is not a valid excuse.

In general, your company can pay for things for you without it counting as your income only if the only purpose is a business one.

https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/business-income-manual/bim37100

The important point is not what the money was spent on but the payer’s purpose in spending the money.

A couple of answers, and the question itself as edited, suggest that it's a grey area and you can often come up with a business purpose when the actual goal is a personal one. There may well be cases where you can get away with it because no-one can prove otherwise, but it's still tax fraud and illegal.

There are plenty of examples in the internal manual linked above:

• https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/business-income-manual/bim37610

  “it was also his intention to have a holiday with his wife at the same time”.

• https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/business-income-manual/bim37900

  There are a variety of expenses that the courts have held, because of their nature, to have an intrinsic duality of purpose and as such are not an allowable deduction. These include: [...] ordinary ‘civilian’ clothing

There is a difference and it is mainly in the case of the tax that you have to pay. Maybe the things that you buy for your company will have some exceptions in tax ( Depending on the kinds of stuff that you buy) For example in the case of reclaiming VAT, As a business person, it is possible for you to reclaim the VAT paid on goods and services purchased for use in your business or for your company while if the purchase has been done for personal or private use, one can only reclaim the business proportion of the VAT.( Value Added Tax Act-1994, UK)

In short, it is legally advised to buy products separately for your business and for private use separately.