Self Assessment - Averaging

ArtistMark

Hi,

Can you give me any advice about working out averaging please??? I am an artist so I'm definitely entitled to claim.

I made a loss last year and a profit this year so if I give some example figures below can someone tell me what to input in the boxes please??

loss for 07/08 £2800
profit for 08/09 £2600

As I calculate it this gives a total profit for the two years of -£200 and an average profit of -£100.

So what should I put in this box:
Averaging adjustment (only for farmers, market gardeners and creators of literary or artistic works). Put a minus sign (-) in the box if the adjustment is negative:

And what about this one?
Loss brought forward from earlier years set-off against 2008-09 profits:

And then in the adjustments section it asks:
Increase in tax due because of adjustments to an earlier year:
Decrease in tax due because of adjustments to an earlier year:

What do I put where?? The help sheets aren't very helpful!

Thanks

Elaine_Wilson

When you average you treat the loss as a nil profit. So you can reduce the 2008/09 profit to £1,300 and charge a profit of £1,300 in 2007/08.

Have you read the helpsheet linked to here. It is a pdf file from the HMRC site.

The losses are dealt with separately.

ArtistMark

Thanks Elaine, that explains why I kept getting error messages! I did read the helpsheet but still wasn't sure, it doesn't deal with losses, just fluctuating profits so maybe that is why I couldn't work it out.

So my profit for 07/08 is nil and for 08/09 is £1300

So

Averaging adjustment (only for farmers, market gardeners and creators of literary or artistic works). Put a minus sign (-) in the box if the adjustment is negative: -£1300 (as adjustment is down by this much)

And what about this one?
Loss brought forward from earlier years set-off against 2008-09 profits: Should this be £1300 too as this is the amount set off????

And then in the adjustments section it asks:
Increase in tax due because of adjustments to an earlier year:
Decrease in tax due because of adjustments to an earlier year:

Still not sure about these boxes.......

Any more help???

Thanks