BTL allowances on SA

ksmith08

Morning all

i wondered if some of you savvy financial wizzes may be able to help
and give me some advice for filling in my self assessment, please?
we have a buy to let and have been advised to keep up our SA even though we do not make more than £2500
profit. I am aware that if we make a loss i can carry over the losses on next years SA, so it's in my best interest to
make my SA every year. I have been keeping my receipts up to date for the maintenance and services etc.
I'd like your advice on the following

a) I have made SA for 2003-04 and 2004-05 in the past which made losses. Rather naively i had an acquaintance
help me do them (not recording these losses myself) and the HMRA have now misplaced these down in one of the Cornwall
tax offices storage rooms, they agree that on the file it says they made losses but they were classed by the HMRA as "capture no returns" or "didn't process returns as they were non-solicited"

what would you recommend here? do i make a guesstimate as was recommended by a HMRA employee?

b) Say we start afresh and submit for 2005-06 and for 2006-07: what can i include in the maintenance & repairs section? for example,
if i take out a broken shower and put a new one in, how does this fair? is there a set of rules for what i can include in this section?
i realise i can include paint and other such material, but can i include the cost of re-tiling where damp had been a problem in the kitchen? (it's a little confusing this bit, as if a shower breaks, putting a new one in is a repair isn't it? or a renewal?)

what about the following can these be added to allowable expenses?

c) Cost for re-mortgage on other properties to raise capital for purchase of buy to let.

d) Mortgage payments made in any tenancy void (we only rent to full time students so for three months in the summer we have a void)

e) Can capital allowances come to mean the costs of a hoover, new dustbins toilet fixtures ??


i realise that i'm asking a lot here, and i thank you in advance for any help or advice you can offer

best wishes

ksmith08

silvercar

IMHO:

a) all you can do is make your best estimates;

b) renewing, replacing, general maintenance are all allowable as exenses, any improvements count as capital expenditure. So a replacement shower is current expenditure whereas fitting a shower where there was not one before is capital;

c) yes, upto the value of the property when you first started letting it;

d) yes,

e) I would say these are current expenditure as they are replacing previous bins, toilet bits etc, but I'm not too sure on the hoover if there was not one before.