Coming off Stepchange to self manage DMP

thelibrarian11

EssexHebridean said:

thelibrarian11 said:

stu12345_2 said:

my bro is a partner  as an architect, he claims lots of expenses, he has an office at home, well it's a fancy  room, he also visits clients in his car and claims the running if his car as an expense too.

i dont know his tax bill, but I'm sure he has lots of expenses

many years ago I was a taxi driver, the HMRC did not get to know about every fare I did. but of course it was all cash back then paying the fare., except for the school contracts which were on a fixed account 

all I had to keep was fuel and cleaning receipts, plus the rental I paid to the owner of car plus my radio rental price to taxi company 

I think I need to hear a bit more of these stories to normalise it for me, I feel a bit teary with the shock of it and how naive I've been. I'll ask about it over on the tax forum, maybe I can get the HMRC debt down with some more amendments.

Going back to this subject from a few months ago - I don't think you've been naive. There is a difference between claiming the things that you should be claiming - so any actual expenses, the heat/light allowance etc, and then there is manipulating things which some people do, and consider completely normal. when I was self employed I claimed the genuine stuff - I was maintaining a home office for some stuff, did have some expenses which could be offset and so claimed those, but that was about it. If it leaves you feeling uncomfortable because you know it's a bit of a stretch, then probably best to leave it unclaimed - think about it in terms of this - if you get an investigation (not likely, but always possible) how comfortable will you feel explaining the things you've claimed? The things that leave you feeling a bit "squirmy"? Probably not really 100% honest to claim, eh? 

I bet if you look though you'll find there are perfectly legitimate things that you can claim and haven't been...HMRC used to do free workshops for self employed people to take them through all the various areas on tax and self assessment - might be worth checking if they still do?

I did look at some guidance, and I spoke to a colleague who has a similar set up to me about it, and I'm fairly confident that the amount I can claim is only about £1000, so may as well just stick to the trading allowance. I don't have any money for an accountant, and I'm struggling for time to do any more thinking and learning about this. I did like freelancing for a while, it made me feel a bit more in control over my income and I liked not relying on the approval of an interview panel for work, but this figuring out self assessment, plus the managing bookings and invoicing and everything makes it not worth it for me. It’s taken me away from the kids and not got me any further towards my goals.

EssexHebridean

Yes, I guess it definitely depends on what you're doing and how easy the SA side of things is. when I was SE I ran three income streams together but they were all relatively straightforward and could all run under the same business, so for me things were pretty straightforward. there probably would have been more stuff I could have claimed had I run things by an accountant, but realistically the cost of the accountant would have been more than I could offset, so not a lot of point there! 

thelibrarian11

EssexHebridean said:

Yes, I guess it definitely depends on what you're doing and how easy the SA side of things is. when I was SE I ran three income streams together but they were all relatively straightforward and could all run under the same business, so for me things were pretty straightforward. there probably would have been more stuff I could have claimed had I run things by an accountant, but realistically the cost of the accountant would have been more than I could offset, so not a lot of point there! 

Oh yeah that too, definitely a risk it will cost more than I save.