The mystery shopping thread - part 4

tigergold

Avensis - if you read the first post of this thread it explains what Mystery Shopping is and what it entails - its not going to make you huge amounts of money but in exchange for your time to go to the shop and answer the questionaire- you can get a fee (taxable) as well as meals out/clothes/drinks etc.

bobthego

Still loads of pub jobs on RE but none that i fancy - am I getting too picky!
I've got a friend visiting next weekend and am desperate to take her out for free.

bobthego

Chollita wrote: »

- after cutting my fee for one of my last jobs, and refusing to pay the full amount, .

Are they allowed to cut fees after the job has been done? completely out of order

mumofjusttwo

Have to say I looked at the pub jobs but you only get a £x.xx meal and £x fee and you have to answer about 100 questions.

Think i will give it a miss.

Timmne

RoxyK wrote: »

Just thought I'd mention a laptop wouldn't be classed as an 'expense' as such as it would last several years so should be entered under the Capital Allowance section which is bit more complicated. I do my husbands S/E accounts and add any hardware or items that will last a while to this 'pool'. I won't try to explain it as my head is foggy enough today!


But it means you can calculate whatever percentage you actually use for business and add it to the pool, whether its 10% or 30% or 50% etc. And each year you calculate the WDA (Writing Down Allowance) which is a percentage of the current pool value. It was 25% this year though Timne will correct if I'm wrong.

A couple of years ago you could use 100% WDA for IT equipment but this no longer applies and the rules do change each year.

It does sound complicated but is actually just a little bit of math

Rules have changed since 6 April this year - for accounts to 05/04/09 there is a new thing called "Annual Investment Allowance" - this means any capital expenditure (e.g. laptops) up the value of £50,000 per year will qualify for the 100% allowance. SO - if you buy a laptop SOLELY for MSing, you can claim for the whole amount against your profits.

It's important to remember that you can't use this to make or increase a loss. The amount of AIA that you take off your profits is restricted to a maximum of your profit level.

The long and short is that you can take the cost of your capital expenditure off your profits, if you bought them after 05/04/08.

HTH

Timmne

mumofjusttwo wrote: »

Have to say I looked at the pub jobs but you onlyget a [pretty basic] meal and [small fee] and you have to answer about 100 questions.

Think i will give it a miss.

I couldn't agree more - I don't even bother logging on to RE any more, their jobs are so beyond worth doing that I don't even look out for them!

cranezoe

I bought a lap top purely to MS in June so guess that would qualify. so how do I calculate it - I thought that I should put it down as an expense so that if it cost £300 then I would have a profit loss of about £80. does that make sense? or do you take the whole £300 off the profit at the end of the year?

Timmne

It's quite a pain to account for - these are the steps: (yawn)

1. Capitalise the asset - meaning it doesn't touch your profit or loss, it gets added to the value of your other assets (e.g. cash, money owed from MSing companies).

2. At the end of each year, you work out your profit as normal, ignoring the fact you bought your laptop.

3. You take your profit and deduct the cost of the laptop BUT ONLY if the laptop's cost was less than your profit. If the laptop was more than your profits then just reduce your profits down to nil. The value of the laptop, less the amount you used to reduce your profits is called your Written Down Value carried forward (WDV c/f)

4. Next year, if you have a WDV c/f from last year (this year's WDV brought forward (WDV b/f)), you can use this again to calculate your taxable profit. The thing about using it in future years, is that you take your WDV b/f and multiply it by 20% (the current rate). The result is the amount you take off your profits.

5. After taking 20% off your WDV b/f, you have your new WDV c/f for next year.

The amounts in step 3, 4 and 5 are put in to the Self Employed pages, currently page 3 but we won't know exactly until next year's tax return is issued. This is because Annual Investment Allowance (the 100% thing I mentioned earlier) doesn't exist in the 2008 tax return.

(yawn )

cookinmummy

Timmne wrote: »

It's quite a pain to account for - these are the steps: (yawn)

1. Capitalise the asset - meaning it doesn't touch your profit or loss, it gets added to the value of your other assets (e.g. cash, money owed from MSing companies).

2. At the end of each year, you work out your profit as normal, ignoring the fact you bought your laptop.

3. You take your profit and deduct the cost of the laptop BUT ONLY if the laptop's cost was less than your profit. If the laptop was more than your profits then just reduce your profits down to nil. The value of the laptop, less the amount you used to reduce your profits is called your Written Down Value carried forward (WDV c/f)

4. Next year, if you have a WDV c/f from last year (this year's WDV brought forward (WDV b/f)), you can use this again to calculate your taxable profit. The thing about using it in future years, is that you take your WDV b/f and multiply it by 20% (the current rate). The result is the amount you take off your profits.

5. After taking 20% off your WDV b/f, you have your new WDV c/f for next year.

The amounts in step 3, 4 and 5 are put in to the Self Employed pages, currently page 3 but we won't know exactly until next year's tax return is issued. This is because Annual Investment Allowance (the 100% thing I mentioned earlier) doesn't exist in the 2008 tax return.

(yawn )

gripes timmne :eek:- thats sounds great but I don't think I get it - I am a wee bit lost in this tax stuff must admit - rang the tax office and found them to be zero help (that was after calling them for a few days to get through).:rolleyes:

cranezoe

You know what Timmne.... that actually makes vague sense to me! short of it - I've calculated mine wrong lol and wil yank it out of my spreadsheet and put it somewhere else. thanks so much!