Tax return

diving_moose

Hi,
My wife is self employed dental therapist and i was wondering can she save her fuel receipts and can the accountant claim on these for travelling to the practice. Also she will have to use the park and ride in the city so can she keep the bus reciepts and put these in as well. I know the accountant will be able to tell us but wont see him for a while so wondered what the score was.
Thanks Lee

heretolearn_2

No, because its travel to her normal workplace. If she went out and visited people, that would be deductable travel.

MrBeans

heretolearn wrote: »

No, because its travel to her normal workplace. If she went out and visited people, that would be deductable travel.

Would it be different if she worked at several practices?

Mary_Hartnell

Yes if she had a job like a mobile secretary or book keeper.
She would make her place of business her home address and charge 40/25p per mile for visiting clients.
However is she really self employed?

HMRC has a number of tests for deciding if someone is self employed and have never really like the "labour only subcontractor" model.
The right to organise your own diary and send a substitute when on holiday/busy is often used as a test, to distinguish the masters and servants from the true contractors
However HMRC has to moderate its investigations in proportion to the tax recoverable - so were she cutting hair she might well be able to "hire" a chair at a local hair dressing establishment.

Pennywise

Mary_Hartnell wrote: »

Yes if she had a job like a mobile secretary or book keeper.
She would make her place of business her home address and charge 40/25p per mile for visiting clients.
However is she really self employed?

HMRC has a number of tests for deciding if someone is self employed and have never really like the "labour only subcontractor" model.
The right to organise your own diary and send a substitute when on holiday/busy is often used as a test, to distinguish the masters and servants from the true contractors
However HMRC has to moderate its investigations in proportion to the tax recoverable - so were she cutting hair she might well be able to "hire" a chair at a local hair dressing establishment.

Associate dentists and dental hygienists ARE usually treated by HMRC as self employed even if they work at just one practice. Reasons include the standard contract which requires them to provide their own professional indemnity insurance and pay their own professional subscriptions, pay their own CPD training costs, pay their own lab fees and then their "pay" is a percentage of the treatment charges.

jimmo

MrBeans wrote: »

Would it be different if she worked at several practices?

Not necessarily.
In the original question the OP seems to be saying that his wife will drive from home and use the park and ride which suggests that they live some distance from the city in which his wife works. That sounds like ordinary commuting and not allowable.
Depending on the number of places that she works in and the pattern of attendance there may be some scope for claiming for journeys between places of work but not the commuting journeys.
The link below relates to a milkman living some distance from his round. The circumstances are different but the principle that a commuting journey is not allowable seems pretty clear.
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/bimmanual/BIM37635.htm