Rent and home based business

Comp2

I apologise. We have no internet or home phone so I'm using my mobile phone which is making this difficult to navigate.

I have reread the link. Many thanks.

Housing_Benefit_Officer

Darksparkle wrote: »

Why not just look it up yourself rather than sarcastic replies to people offering advice.

https://www.gov.uk/expenses-if-youre-self-employed/overview

Except what HMRC accept as expenses are not the same as what HB Departments will accept.

Housing_Benefit_Officer

For Housing Benefit purposes we won't accept 'rent' for the residential property that the claimant resides in as a business expense thus reducing their self employed profit and increase their Housing Benefit when the claimant is also trying to claim taxpayers money to pay their rent.

densol_2

I already advised you of a book on your other thread that will explain all of the deductions you can claim against your gross profit ( for HMRC tax return )

Cakeguts

Comp2 wrote: »

I have looked it up and I am still not sure of the answer. :-/

I don't see how it is helpful to suggest that people with no money uproot from their home town and family to a cheaper part of the country. It would costs hundreds of not thousands of pounds and we wouldn't have work so would be in an even worse position!

You implied that you could move to a cheaper rental home. You said the reason why you couldn't do that was because you needed a room for your working space. You didn't say that you didn't want to move because you wanted to stay in an expensive area that you couldn't afford.

Moving to a cheaper area of the country would solve your money problems. Moving is expensive if you can afford to move to a smaller property in the area you live in now you can afford to move further away.

It appears that you don't want to move further away you want to continue to rent a property in an area that you can't afford to live in.

Darksparkle

Housing_Benefit_Officer wrote: »

Except what HMRC accept as expenses are not the same as what HB Departments will accept.

OP never mentioned HB, only tax credits which follow the rules of HMRC for tax purposes.

Housing_Benefit_Officer

Darksparkle wrote: »

OP never mentioned HB, only tax credits which follow the rules of HMRC for tax purposes.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5542454

Darksparkle

Housing_Benefit_Officer wrote: »

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5542454

That's another thread, I don't go reading all the old ones.

antrobus

Comp2 wrote: »

Can I put a percentage of my rent through my business as an expense? I work from home. It's impossible to make ends meet on our income including tax credits. The reason being our rent is high. If we were to find a cheaper rental property I would not be able to work from home as we use the extra room purely to run my business from.

If we moved to a smaller property I would have to rent a business premises.

Business use of home.

The basic HMRC protocol is set out here;

Specific deductions: use of home: specific expenses
https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/business-income-manual/bim47820

There is however a simplified flat rate scheme, that avoids having to apportion expenses;

Working from home
https://www.gov.uk/simpler-income-tax-simplified-expenses/working-from-home

Or you can claim for £4 per week, simply because employees are allowed to claim £4 per week without providing any records, thus HMRC will accept that as an expense of self-employment.

Bogalot

Comp2 wrote: »

No unfortunately we can't.

You're both doing very low paid self employed work yet you claim neither of you can do an employed job. Is it can't, or won't?

It makes no sense at all.