Home baking business & expenses

Dogged

This year I have set up a small cake making/decorating business from home, I’m self employed so doing my own self assessment. In order to set this up I had to get a new kitchen fitted and wondered if I can claim (and if so how much) this as an expense?

Any advice appreciated

trailingspouse

If this is a kitchen in a normal home environment, which you also use for normal family life, it will come under 'duality of purpose' - so no, you can't.



As a kitchen is a major expense, and you seem to have had the new kitchen fitted in order to set up the business, this is perhaps something that you should have checked out before going ahead.


To avoid other, potentially costly, errors you need to speak to an accountant/legal advisor/bank as soon as possible.


Do you have food hygiene qualifications, product liability insurance, public liability insurance (if clients visit you in your home), does your mortgage provider/landlord know you are running a business from home, does your house insurer know you are running a business from home, do you understand your responsibilities re allergies and labelling, have you spoken to environmental health?


If you haven't got these things in place yet, it doesn't mean you can't ago ahead, it just means you have a bit of work to do!!

Mistral001

You have to be careful about claiming such things as this as an expense as it could mean that when you come to sell the house you might have to pay capital gains tax on the proportion of the house you use as a business

Thiona

Dogged wrote: »

This year I have set up a small cake making/decorating business from home, I’m self employed so doing my own self assessment. In order to set this up I had to get a new kitchen fitted and wondered if I can claim (and if so how much) this as an expense?

Any advice appreciated

You say in order to set up your new business, you "had to" get a new kitchen fitted.

So does this new kitchen pass the 'wholly and exclusively' usage test so often referred to by HMRC?

If yes, so many more questions will arise ...