Self Employed for the 1st time

Airwolf1

Hi People,

I have 2 jobs, 1 employed, 1 self employed. All I am really wanting to know is what I can claim for towards expenses for the self employment. I realise mileage is £0.40 per mile, reducing to £0.25 after 10,000 miles pa, but what about utility bills? I have my own office at home, and roughly 30% of my time in there is doing this self employed work. How much towards utilities can I claim, can I claim towards water and council tax too?

Many thanks for any assistance offered.

orangeslimes

you can claim portions of your gas, electric, mortgage interest, council tax, rent as expenses. if you have a house with 4 rooms in it and you use one room for business 30% of the time then a reasonable way to calculate it might be a twelfth of utilities (i.e. a third of a quarter)
For phone/internet bills etc you can claim relevant portion to your business. e.g. if you reckon that half of the calls made on your phone are business related then claim 50% of the bill.
You need to keep relevant paperwork etc just in case you are ever inspected so you can justify it.

Airwolf1

Thanks for the reply, I was unsure if council tax was included. How do I claim so much of mortgage interest?

orangeslimes

These examples (4 and 6) are quite helpful at explaining what you can claim i think:

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/bimmanual/BIM47825.htm

and you can read throught this for more information/if you have lots of spare time
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/bimmanual/BIM47800.htm

Airwolf1

Thanks for the info.