Some advice for a new company

mark55man

Hi

As a supplement to my normal office job I have started a company to try and make a little money out of a personal interest. So to be clear - this is not going to be the next Dragon's Den, but I hope to earn into 4 figures (ie Not in the VAT zone - but easily enough to cover the costs of running a business).

This will mainly be based on some Internet activity at home and some driving delivery/weekend travel.

The question is, can I help enhance my business returns by sharing any costs (household - internet, electricity, car) between my personal affairs and the company.

Would appreciate some simple adivce and pointers - most of my googling has returned rather bland general business advice which I don't need (yet), but none of the practica stuff that more experienced small business owners take for granted

Thanks in advance

jimmo

Have you really set up a company for this (registered with Companies House etc, etc, etc) or will you be a sole trader?

mark55man

I set up as a company - partly for the experience, and partly because it was only £30, and also because we will be looking to work with other companies so it felt appropriate.

I hadn't really thought about sole trader - I will look into that - again any pointers gratefully received

Thanks

taxguru

mark88man wrote: »

Would appreciate some simple adivce and pointers - most of my googling has returned rather bland general business advice which I don't need (yet), but none of the practica stuff that more experienced small business owners take for granted

As a general rule you could charge the company £4 per week for use of home, without providing any supporting evidence. For detailed rules on this search BIM47820 on the HMRC website - I can't link it here being new to this forum.

As for the use of car you could use your car for business purposes and claim 45p per mile from the company for business miles up to 10,000 in a tax year.

cosyc

Don't forget there is lots of help from hmrc once you are set up. They do lots of free online training for people in business

http://hmrc.gov.uk/webinars

mark55man

OK Thanks Guys

So the £4 a week this is a charge from me as a person to my company for use of my premises. this means it is a cost to the company so it doesn't pay tax on that

I had a quick look at the links - they look very helpful