the lost receipt!!

roxylock

Hi, I recently went self employed as a domestic cleaner, I have a septate bank account that all my customers pay direct into.
I only pay myself the same amount every week, but I do use my card to put petrol in for my travel.
I used the card a few weeks ago to put £30 petrol in my car, but i seem to have misplaced the receipt.
I am now really worried that I do not have the receipt to tally up with my paperwork, bank statement etc.
Does anyone know if there is a way around this?

I'm sure im not the first person to make this mistake!

Any advise would be greatly appriciated!

Kind regards.

Roxane

jobbingmusician

I would just write myself a receipt, with a note on it saying 'original receipt lost' and file it with all your other receipts. If you ever were audited by HMRC, I'm sure they would understand one missing receipt, especially as presumably it would be for approximately the same amount and at the same frequency as all your other petrol receipts.

I do mystery shopping, so do a self-employed tax return every year (note to self - must get round to doing this ) and must admit I have never kept petrol receipts! It's really good practice, though, so congratulations on being so methodical.

MX5huggy

Unless you are only using the car for business use, no personal milage, you are almost always better off claiming 40p a mile. The paper work to do it the other way is not worth the effort. See.....

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/bimmanual/bim47701.htm

Then you don't need fuel receipts.

Notmyrealname

As above. Far better to claim mileage. If you're using the car for personal and business use, you have to estimate the amount of use which is business and you can only claim for that.

If you put in £30 and claimed that full £30 as a business expense yet did shopping and personal trips on that, you're actually committing tax evasion by falsely claiming an expense.

roxylock

Hi guys, Thanks for your advice. So I will write myself a receipt for the £30. So by claiming it back, do you mean using my own personal money to pay got fuel, keeping some receipts and a record of how many miles I have done. But I know this will seem a stupid question, how do I receive that back? Do I pay myself that at the end of the year?
I know i sound dumb, but I'm pretty much doing this on my own, so any advice would be great.

Thanks
Roxane

ILW

roxylock wrote: »

Hi guys, Thanks for your advice. So I will write myself a receipt for the £30. So by claiming it back, do you mean using my own personal money to pay got fuel, keeping some receipts and a record of how many miles I have done. But I know this will seem a stupid question, how do I receive that back? Do I pay myself that at the end of the year?
I know i sound dumb, but I'm pretty much doing this on my own, so any advice would be great.

Thanks
Roxane

Very basically, when you do your tax return at the end of the year, you list all the money you have received and then deduct any allowable expenses (such as mileage etc). You are then taxed what is left as "profit".

sujman

Why cant you go back to the garage concerned and ask them to write you a replacement one?

I went recently to get 4 copy receipts from a tesco petrol station. I had assumed they'd do a search on their tills and re-print. I had copies of my CC statements to demonstrate proof of date and amount.

But they didn't ask for any of that. She simply asked me for date and amount and wrote out a manual receipt from a Tesco branded receipt book and job done!

My company accepted this (it was for fuel used in a hire car) no problem and paid up my expenses claim.

cazziebo

MX5huggy wrote: »

Unless you are only using the car for business use, no personal milage, you are almost always better off claiming 40p a mile. The paper work to do it the other way is not worth the effort. See.....

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/bimmanual/bim47701.htm

Then you don't need fuel receipts.

I believe it's 45p now - even better

firesidemaid

hiya.

when i first signed up with hmrc as self-employed they sent everyone on a free half-day course which was fantastic - lots of help with filling out tax return and what were allowable and non-allowable expenses.

i wasn't automatically told about it the first time - it was after i had rang back to ask a question that another staff member told me. give them a ring to see if they still do it.

roxylock

Thanks for your reply.
So can I use my business account to pay for advertising, tools and equipment etc?

Thanks
Roxane

MX5huggy

roxylock wrote: »

Thanks for your reply.
So can I use my business account to pay for advertising, tools and equipment etc?

Thanks
Roxane

Yes, you really need to read up on running a business, are you paying class 2 NI, are you saving 1 third of your profit, not turn over, for paying tax? Etc.