Customers who want term time only cleaning-should I ask for pavement/retainer-help

melissa'smoney

Mojisola wrote: »

Keep very careful records of every penny spent and hours worked - you quickly toughen up if you realise that you're working for a couple of pounds an hour!

I'm keep all my receipts and logging it all.
I was surprised about not being about to claim for mileage from Home to 'work' only being able to claim between houses-is this correct. I do a lot of miles from my house to customers and return which I cannot claim for. If I'm wrong great.
Petrol, clothing I'll be claiming for.
I wash all my cloth and mops etc at end of each day, how do you work out how much 'washing machine/electricity usage you've used?
Also I use my phone to text, speak to customers' is this something I can claim for?

Thanks x

antrobus

melissa'smoney wrote: »

...I was surprised about not being about to claim for mileage from Home to 'work' only being able to claim between houses-is this correct. I do a lot of miles from my house to customers and return which I cannot claim for. If I'm wrong great. ....

So am I. You are an 'itinerant worker', your 'base of operations' is your home, and therefore all your business mileage should be allowable.

melissa'smoney wrote: »

..Petrol, clothing I'll be claiming for.

Petrol is part of mileage. You can claim for specific work related clothing, but not for clothing in general.

melissa'smoney wrote: »

..I wash all my cloth and mops etc at end of each day, how do you work out how much 'washing machine/electricity usage you've used? ....

That will part of 'business use of home'. You can reclaim £4 a week without any trouble.

melissa'smoney wrote: »

..Also I use my phone to text, speak to customers' is this something I can claim for? ...

Yes, you can claim back a proportion of phone costs.

Pennywise

Self employed travel is not easy.

"Itinerant" means travel to temporary workplaces, and in the Horton V Young case, it was confirmed that travel from home to different sites was allowable, but in that case, it was a bricklayer who went to site A for 3 weeks, then site B for three weeks, etc., hence each site being a temporary workplace.

Trouble is that if you travel to the same place, i.e. there is regularity, so you travel to site A every Monday, site B every Tuesday, etc., then each workplace could be permanent (travel not allowable) because they're not temporary due to the regularity and pattern. In that case, it's not an "itinerant" business at all.

Not sure at all about the allowability of travel between clients but not to/from home for the first and last job of each day. I stand to be corrected, but I recognise that from the employment income manual for agency workers such as care assistants. I think it therefore only applies to employees who go "house to house" due to their job, rather than the self employed.

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth

Drop the teachers and take more willing customers

antrobus

Pennywise wrote: »

Self employed travel is not easy.....

Nothing is ever easy with tax.

Pennywise wrote: »

..."Itinerant" means travel to temporary workplaces, and in the Horton V Young case, it was confirmed that travel from home to different sites was allowable, but in that case, it was a bricklayer who went to site A for 3 weeks, then site B for three weeks, etc., hence each site being a temporary workplace.

Trouble is that if you travel to the same place, i.e. there is regularity, so you travel to site A every Monday, site B every Tuesday, etc., then each workplace could be permanent (travel not allowable) because they're not temporary due to the regularity and pattern. In that case, it's not an "itinerant" business at all....

HMRC appear to use the phrase 'itinerant trades' to mean something specific.

There are some trades (called 'itinerant trades') where the 'home to work' travel may be solely for the purpose of the trade - for example a self-employed travelling sales representative.

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/bimmanual/BIM37635.htm

A "self-employed travelling sales representative" might well be regularly visiting the same customers. The key thing would be travel "solely for the purpose of the trade".

Pennywise wrote: »

...Not sure at all about the allowability of travel between clients but not to/from home for the first and last job of each day. I stand to be corrected, but I recognise that from the employment income manual for agency workers such as care assistants. I think it therefore only applies to employees who go "house to house" due to their job, rather than the self employed.

It is different for employees. It is hard for an employee to show that their home is their base of operations. It's that word exclusively.