Self Assessment - Percentage Query

Aussie

Wasted ages on the phone to HMRC but got nowhere.

I'm a self employed (labour only) electrician.

I know I can claim a percentage of my phone and vehicle costs etc but seeing that they are also for personal use, I can't seem to find out what the percentage I can claim is. Is anyone able to help?

Also, can anyone tell me what the rate is per mile between home and site?

Many thanks
Aussie

BoGoF

How can someone tell you what percentage you use your phone/vehicle for, you are the only person that knows that.

jimmo

The percentage of the phone bill you can claim is the percentage of business use compared to overall private and business use. HMRC cannot tell you how much you use your phone for business and how much you use it privately. Only you know that.
As regards business travel the simple method is for you to claim 45 pence per mile for the first 10,000 miles a year and 25ppm thereafter but there is a whole bucket of worms for you to negotiate before you can determine whether your journeys from home to site are normal commuting or business journeys.
As a taxman, my opening stance would be that that you can claim nothing for your phone or travelling to work.
An accountant would probably start from the other end of the scale.

Aussie

Cheers, can see now by what you are both saying that every case would be different, I thought I was looking at the basic sort of examples for self assessment claims, seeing that i supply labour only and not materials I was looking for some thing to claim as 20% tax rate might leave me short if I don't claim anything at all.