Car parking and self employed

financialdoll

Hi

I am self employed but work from an office where I pay for a car parking space. Does anyone know if I can offset the cost of the car parking space (it's about £1,200 per annum) against my taxable income?

I offset car parking costs when I visit clients but wasn't sure if I could offset my usual regular parking space.

Any help would be much appreciated!!

ceeforcat

Really cannot see the problem as the expense is 'wholly and neceesarily' incurred in order to perform your duties. Claim as for any other motor expense. In fact one could also argue that there is no private element on this expenditure at all and so, when calculating your private motoring costs in determining your taxable profit, this exepense could be excluded from the calculation.

nexus2011

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/paye/exb/a-z/c/car-parking-charges.htm

ceeforcat

nexus2011 wrote: »

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/paye/exb/a-z/c/car-parking-charges.htm

The op is self-employed. Not sure of the relevance of your link.

chrismac1

I have seen no cases on this. But in principle IF the motoring costs of going to that location are allowable, so are the car parking costs. The motoring costs to that office are allowable only if it is a temporary place of work. This was an area HMRC thought they had bolted firmly down, there have been three Tribunal cases decided during 2011 and the score is HMRC 0 Taxpayers United 3. Please see some of my earlier posts for details of the cases.

However, in this case if you were my client I'd be advising caution on claiming a temporary place of work. Your post suggests that this office is the main base for your business, whereas in the threee victorious cases the self-employed person (all in construction sector) was doing things like preparing quotes and sales invoices from another location - namely their homes, which no doubt was the address on their tax returns under "place of business".

I have a client who works as a sub-contractor at one location more or less every day with occasional trips to other locations, and these trips normally start from the first location not his home. I've advised him not to claim travelling costs to the main location as I can't really see anything in these cases to back up such a claim.