Website - A valid expense for self-assessment?

JCWeb

I run a small online e-commerce site for items I manufacture myself. Can I offset the cost of the online store against my tax? I upgrade & redesign it every year to 18mths to keep it fresh and interactive.



I am a sole trader and spent many hours myself designing, creating the site and updating it on a regular basis (security upgrades, new products, search engine optimisation etc). The site and interaction through it (and social networks) is essentially my business and advertising/marketing.



This has totalled many, many hours of work. I know if I'd have contracted someone to develop the site for me I could claim these costs as expenses but as I have built everything myself, am I able to charge a fair cost for time & development against tax.



I hadn't considered doing this but was told it could be possible?



Any advice would be greatly appreciated.



Thanks

nomunnofun

You have to be logical - you are going to pay yourself and claim the cost of the expense against your tax. How is the person who receives this money, i.e. yourself, going to declare this? I am afraid that you can go nowhere with this.

le_loup

Erm... you don't seem to realise how profit and loss works.
Your expense for this and any other work you do is your salary.
Why not outsource all your work, get the tax man to refund the costs and retire in luxury?

Scarpacci

You can't value your own time against your self-employed tax. That's part of your job and is what you're earning money for. If you actually pay somebody else then you do have an expense. You don't lose out by doing it yourself as you're not spending money, you're just doing work. It would be entirely circular for you to be claiming your work as an expense and as an earning.

Of course, what you buy in the process of designing your website would typically be an allowable expense: domain names, hosting, design software, stock graphics, etc. Your time, though, isn't.

JCWeb

Thanks for your advice, I thought as much but just wanted to clarify.

Thanks again

PasturesNew

You can claim the cost of hosting/domain name etc against your tax. The time you spend doing work on the site isn't claimable. You'd be writing out an invoice to yourself, to pay yourself, to end up with the same amount of money - that you'd still pay income tax on.

Randvegeta

Yeah, I thought it would have been pretty obvious that you can only claim ACTUAL expenses as an expense. If you spent money on it, then you should be able to claim. But you're living in a dream world if you think you can get the tax man to effectively pay you for the work you do for yourself....

JCWeb

I did think that, but when people start offering advice - I thought it best to check & clarify. I do claim for the expenses such as hosting & domains etc.

Thanks for answering.

John_Pierpoint

You could buy some agricultural land and get paid for not farming it, though you do have to spray the weeds twice a year these days.