Claiming expenses as self-employed

Maxnot

Some context: I've been self-employed for about a year now and I'm at the moment trying to understand expenses in the HMRC sense. I've mentioned to my mum a couple of times in the past about wanting to buy an iPhone at some point in the future and she's said on both times that I could get it covered as a 'tax deduction' because I'm self-employed.

Having looked through the HMRC website and the appropriate pages I'm none the wiser as to what expenses would be allowable, let alone whether or not I'd be able to claim an iPhone as an expense.

Could someone please try and help me understand it all? A lot of what I'm reading on the HMRC website is quite hard for me to understand so any help would be massively appreciated.

I'm also annoyed that I didn't learn of this earlier but hey ho and all that...

jexygirl

Maxnot wrote: »

I'm at the moment trying to understand expenses in the HMRC sense.

Having looked through the HMRC website and the appropriate pages I'm none the wiser as to what expenses would be allowable, let alone whether or not I'd be able to claim an iPhone as an expense.

what I'm reading on the HMRC website is quite hard for me to understand so any help would be massively appreciated.

I'm also annoyed that I didn't learn of this earlier but hey ho and all that...

Max, we all live and learn so don't worry about it, the good thing is you are doing something about it.
Whilst someone clever and in the proper know will be along shortly with direct answers, I would suggest a free half hour consult with an accountant, or 3 different ones, as you will be very surprised how much you will benefit from their advice, and likely you will see the benefit of having one, no matter how small or large your outfit.
A good accountant will save you their fee and way more in terms of expenses / terms /what is claimable. I think you can claim the phone as a business expense, if it is deemed under some clever maths column as essential to your business, and it then becomes an asset or something, with yearly depreciation, whatever that formula is... but there is a limit to what is business use or claimed /termed as business use and what is deemed as personal and some sort of formula or something that decides it! can you see why I worship the ground my accountant walks on

Jex

InsideInsurance

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/bimmanual/bim47820.htm will give you a starter for 10.

If you want to be above board then you would split the costs along the same proportion that your personal to business use is. So if you use the phone 25% of the time for business and 75% for personal then you would add 25% of the fixed cost (eg line rental) to your business expenses.