Self Employed from home - working out tax for rent/electrics etc.

jakiphoto

This maybe a simple answer but I can't seem to find it anywhere. I am a self employed photographer who works from home. I understand that I can claim tax on things like rent/mobile phone bill/internet/electric bills etc. but how much do I deduct? is there a certain percentage?

HappyMJ

jakiphoto wrote: »

This maybe a simple answer but I can't seem to find it anywhere. I am a self employed photographer who works from home. I understand that I can claim tax on things like rent/mobile phone bill/internet/electric bills etc. but how much do I deduct? is there a certain percentage?

You can claim £4 per week without being to exact about how you figured it out...it's considered an estimate and a small claim HMRC aren't too bothered if you claim that much....or you can claim a percentage of all those expenses you mentioned by figuring out the percentage of the time and/or area of the house relating to business use. There isn't really a fixed percentage. If you had 5 rooms (rooms that you live in including bedrooms and living rooms and excluding the bathroom and any passageways for instance) then you could claim 20% being 1 in 5. If you used the entire house for 7 hours each day for 5 days each week then that's also about 20% of a week. Being self employed you really should have a business phone on which you can claim 100% of the expenses and a personal phone on which you can claim nothing. Personally, I have a business mobile contract and a mobile with a SIM from Ovivo for personal calls.