self-employed tax deductible expenses question

tebow

Hi everyone. I am a (newly) self-emplyed psychologist and in my job I use psychometrics (they are like questionnaires) to assess clients as part of the work. These kits are expensive (e.g. £1200 for an initial kit and £100 for some forms) as they are copyright and I wondered if these are classed as expenses and if so are they considered to be raw materials or equipment or something like this, as I don't think they would come under the heading of stationary?

In addition could anyone direct me to anything online, or do you know much, about training and how this is seen in terms of tax. For example if I consider it essential to attend a training course is this allowed to go on my records as expenses allowable against tax? And what about conference attendance fees/travel.

I hope you can help!

Tebow

tabbyfish

Anything you use for your business you can claim for. If there is an element of personal use in any of those thing as long as you make a reasonable allowance for them their should be no problem. Keep every receipt and bill and proof Of payment and you wil be fine.

As long as you can justify any expense if they ask all will be good.

There wil be info on https://www.hmrc.gov.uk.

chrismac1

If the kits are used directly on a client by client, job by job basis then I'd classify tham as cost of sales. I suspect that they are not in which case I would treat them as capital and claim capital allowances on them. In principle I see them as being like a website from which sales can directly be made - the policy for such revenue generating websites is to capitalise them just as if they were plant and machinery.

Training is an item which comes up a lot, and there have been a lot of cases in this area where HMRC have sought to show that such expense is capital and not revenue, hence not claimable against trading income.

The key issue is whether such training is developing you into a position to do your trade, or required "licence to operate" expenditure needed to maintain your position to carry out your trade.

A clear cut example (I think!) is with the GPs on my books. Not many of us would like to be treated by a doctor who'd done no training in the past 20 years, so in my book all such training cost put through by a GP is prima facie claimable unless I can see a potential development aspect e.g. "Advanced Brain Surgery" is probably not something your average GP would need to study to maintain his role as a GP.

Another example - the courses I pay for to keep myself up to date with the latest goalpost shifts by HMRC and changes in accounting standards are claimable. The cash I shelled out 25 years ago for courses and materials to enable me to qualify were not claimable, they were developing my human capital.

tebow

Thanks for both responses, particularly for your lengthy response chrismac1. Yes the kit would last a couple of years and the forms would be used per patient/client. So what you have said makes sense to me. I didn't quite realise it would be as subjective in terms if training as it sounds like I would need to be deciding if it is essential or required for my job, or a development that would be an investment by increasing knowledge/skills longer term.

Also am I right in thinking my lockable cabinets and desk that I intend to buy would also be capital? And that I can claim the same for a proportion of my existing laptop even though I already had it but it is now used 75% for business and 25% general home use?

Thanks again