Mystery Shopping Thread 20 **PLEASE DO NOT MENTION CLIENT NAMES OR FEES ON HERE**

nanaw

can you claim expenses of getting to the job as a self employed as well as getting paid for expenses from MS companies?

HappyMJ

nanaw wrote: »

Can you please tell me which jobs I should accept then?
As you said a minimum is fee + reimbursement
Is there any minimum of payment for a job that I should accept?
I dont want to earn a lot of money as I dont have enough time (it would be a weekend job), but £20-40 a week would be great. thanks

Totally up to you. I'd aim to do something else whilst you are in town at the same time so that would make the journey free for you. I would accept a job if it paid £1 an hour as a minimum plus enough to cover all the expenses involved in getting to and from the clients site.

nanaw wrote: »

can you claim expenses of getting to the job as a self employed as well as getting paid for expenses from MS companies?

Claim them from who? The MS companies won't pay you any more. Unless you refuse it as it's too far then they might offer a few quid more as an incentive. If you take a few jobs over the week at £45 and drive about 100 miles between all these jobs then you would claim a £45 deduction against the income earnt. Income £45 less Expenses of £45 equals zero profit. You have no profit so no tax liability arises.

Monkeynut

Nanaw - you just need to look at each job that you see that you would be able to accept and work out whether it is worth it. If it's up the road from you so you can walk there, then even with a small fee, it's profit for you. Obviously only you can decide what you consider to be 'worthwhile profit' for your particular circumstances etc. For example someone more in need of the oney might be more willing to walk up the road, do a visit and fill out the report for £5 fee, whereas someone who diesn't really need the money as much might think it's too much hassle and only be willing to do it for £10 for example.

Work out roughly how much it actually costs you to drive to certain places, and remember to take into account whether you are likely to need to also pay for parking etc. I find it easier to decide if a job is worth it as I mainly use public transport so I know the exact cost. A day ticket on the bus costs £3, so obviously I wouldn't do a job for £5 as to me the £2 profit is not worth my time. However if, like today, I have been able to pick up a few jobs, all of which i can get to using the same ticket on the bus, then the fees add up to about £35 (don't shout at me for putting this figure as it's very vague as I've not said what jobs/companies, or how many jobs etc ) so £32 was worth it. As it happens I needed to go into town anyway to get a present, so would have still had to buy a bus ticket so technically the whole £35 is profit, but we shan't tell the tax man that!!!
Obviously when we say about taking travel expenses etc off your taxable profit, you need to remember that it's not that my bus expense means I've £3 less tax to pay, it means I'm taxed on £3 less.

nanaw

HappyMJ wrote: »

Totally up to you. I'd aim to do something else whilst you are in town at the same time so that would make the journey free for you. I would accept a job if it paid £1 an hour as a minimum plus enough to cover all the expenses involved in getting to and from the clients site.
Claim them from who? The MS companies won't pay you any more. Unless you refuse it as it's too far then they might offer a few quid more as an incentive. If you take a few jobs over the week at £45 and drive about 100 miles between all these jobs then you would claim a £45 deduction against the income earnt. Income £45 less Expenses of £45 equals zero profit. You have no profit so no tax liability arises.

Hi HappyM,
sorry I dont really know how the self employment works. Is it easy to explain and understand.
If I am going to make £45 for jobs as a MS and do 100miles so then I claim 45p per mile and it gives me £45 return for a cost of petrol. So I would still get payed £45 by MS company.
Sorry if it is silly question but this is how I understand it. Is that correct?

HappyMJ

nanaw wrote: »

Hi HappyM,
sorry I dont really know how the self employment works. Is it easy to explain and understand.
If I am going to make £45 for jobs as a MS and do 100miles so then I claim 45p per mile and it gives me £45 return for a cost of petrol. So I would still get payed £45 by MS company.
Sorry if it is silly question but this is how I understand it. Is that correct?

You don't claim 45p from anyone. Employees can claim 45p a mile from their employers but as MS is self employment so it's an expense. You put the entry into your accounts and hopefully if your self employment trading income is seperate from your personal money you would transfer £45 from your business account into your personal account and mark it as a mileage expense. You may only put £10 of fuel in the car but the 45p a miles covers everything from fuel, business insurance on the car, oil, depreciation, MOT's, Tax....etc... It's to simplify the accounts rather than entering each expense seperately then apportioning the business portion and the personal portion. You could do that if you wanted to.

dazza.mk

nanaw,
Its only relevant for when you complete a self assessment return (although obviously you need to keep records during the year).

But it effectively means that for the job you get paid £45 you have expenses of £45 so your profit is zero (assuming no other factors).

Whereas assuming assignment was next door, you'd get paid £45 which would be your profit, so assuming you were a basic rate tax payer you would be liable for £9 (20%) tax on the job.

poor_student138

HappyMJ wrote: »

Is the £1,200 profit? I earn about the same as you but write the whole lot off against mileage expenses at 45p a mile so there is no profit and nothing to declare. 2,600 miles a year (50 miles a week) at 45p will reduce your profit to zero.

I've only just started signing up for mystery shopping companies, so I've not completed the Tax stuff yet. If like you said, your profit is zero, do you still have to register as self-emloyed? If you're not making any profit from it? Little bit confused...

Thanks

dazza.mk

poor_student138 wrote: »

I've only just started signing up for mystery shopping companies, so I've not completed the Tax stuff yet. If like you said, your profit is zero, do you still have to register as self-emloyed? If you're not making any profit from it? Little bit confused...

Thanks

You still have to regster and file a self assessment return.

poor_student138

dazza.mk wrote: »

You still have to regster and file a self assessment return.

Ok, great Thanks

System

Anyone else have trouble with GFK test for 'financial institution' visits?