Advice needed re Tax record keeping when carbooting.

YoJoJo

Hello

I'm a small eBay business seller who is registered with HMRC. I keep a basic Excel worksheet showing my outgoings and earnings, and I also keep all receipts and invoices and so on. I am finding things a bit slow during the Summer holidays so I'm off to do a carboot tomorrow morning with a fair bit of my stock. I intend to keep a record of what sells and for how much but I'm concerned how I can 'prove' my earnings from tomorrow, should HMRC enquire about it. Other than just record the sales as 'cash' on my Excel sheet, is there anything else I should be doing?

Oh, and is it ok to add the pitch fee as an expense in the Taxman's eyes?

Thanks in advance for any replies (am off to bed now, have to be up at 5 a.m.!)

macfly

You can't prove it, so you dont have to. Second question - yes. Plus your mileage.

YoJoJo

Thank you. Managed to make £153 this morning at the car boot.

sequence

Can you take a reasonable percentage of the repair costs of your car whilst you're at it ? Obviously the amount would depend on the ratio of personal to business use.

Just curious?

macfly

It's not worth it, you would have to claim your car as a depreciating asset. Mileage allowance is calculated at 45p a mile this year which takes all expenses in to account.

milfhunter

sequence wrote: »

Can you take a reasonable percentage of the repair costs of your car whilst you're at it ? Obviously the amount would depend on the ratio of personal to business use.

Just curious?

If it is owned by the business then full cost of repair can go through but then you need to be paying personal tax on the BIK value. Far eastertide record business miles at 40 odd pence per mile. Also remember to let your insurers know it is being used for business. Very scary story on pistonheads recently about someone who didn't and insurers refused a payout after it was in a serious accident!

Pembroke

I used to carry three books with me to the boot fairs I sold at. One was a small cash book, I would write down all sales, pitch fees, any purchases including food and drink and items for stock in it, start off with my float amount at the beginning of the day and tot it all up at the end of the day. Second book was a notebook for mileage covered, don't forget it's there and back and then it's simplest to use the mileage allowance as detailed by Macfly above. Third book was a receipt book, to this day it's never been used but you can guarantee that if you don't have it someone will want a receipt.

pitkin2020

milfhunter wrote: »

If it is owned by the business then full cost of repair can go through but then you need to be paying personal tax on the BIK value. Far eastertide record business miles at 40 odd pence per mile. Also remember to let your insurers know it is being used for business. Very scary story on pistonheads recently about someone who didn't and insurers refused a payout after it was in a serious accident!

not if your claiming mileage as the pence per mileage includes all repairs etc, you can only claim for things like that if you are claiming for fuel receipts with all other additional bills being claimed for aswell. You can only claim one method and you can not switch to the other method on that vehicle.

milfhunter

pitkin2020 wrote: »

not if your claiming mileage as the pence per mileage includes all repairs etc, you can only claim for things like that if you are claiming for fuel receipts with all other additional bills being claimed for aswell. You can only claim one method and you can not switch to the other method on that vehicle.

Thank you for the paraphrase

macfly

milfhunter wrote: »

If it is owned by the business then full cost of repair can go through but then you need to be paying personal tax on the BIK value. Far eastertide record business miles at 40 odd pence per mile. Also remember to let your insurers know it is being used for business. Very scary story on pistonheads recently about someone who didn't and insurers refused a payout after it was in a serious accident!

If you claim the car as a business asset, you can't claim the full cost of anything, unless it's used solely for business. Unlikely in this case as it's the odd car boot. If you did one every week. it's a seventh of all costs, plus a seventh of the value. Never worth the paper work.
45p a mile from this year is the mileage allowance for cars used for business.
Personal tax would only be payable if you had a limited company.