Im a self employed sub-contracting plasterer who drives to several social housing properties a day. I get paid by a contractor who deducts my tax, but the properties I work at are for a social housing company.
This year Im going to record my mileage instead of submitting my deisil receipts/ mot/ tax insurance and any repairs. I have a couple of questions.
1) When recording the info, do I need to enter every address and street name and the exact miles to the decimal place.
2) I heard I can only change to the mileage option rather than the receipts option when you buy a new work motor/van. (something I have done in April) Is this true.?
3) I sometimes travel up to 90 miles away before I get to the town where Im working, Ill be given the postcode on route from the social housing company. Can I claim these 90 miles?
Yes you can claim 40p per mile all you need to do is keep a record of where you have been and how many miles it is there and you can also claim the miles you would need to travel back. Yes you can only do this at the start of a new tax year not sure if you need to buy a new vehicle. Also yes you can claim the 90 miles.
Easiest way to record is keep a mileage log book in your car/van and whenever on business travel record the following; date, starting point, destination, business mileage. Your starting point should normally be your home address but on one particular day you might go 2 or more jobs in which case as long as you can keep a track on your business mileage that is all that matters. You can claim 45p a mile for the first 10k business mileage each tax year (from 6 april 2011) and 10p a mile thereafter.
You dont need to buy a new vehicle and you can change from receipts basis to mileage basis whenever you want. But what you cant do is change back and forward from receipts basis to mileage basis depending on what is best from a tax viewpoint. You have you decide to use one basis and stick to it.
If the 90 miles is business mileage ie would you do the mileage if not working. Doesnt seem that you would in this case so therefore you can claim.
Has your turnover breached the VAT registration threshold? If so as self employed individual you cannot claim mileage allowance. This option would NOT be open to you (unless you incorporate).
If you have not breached the VAT threshold then you can claim but should you breach the threshold then you must stop claiming as soon as you change your vehicle (again unless you incorporate).
Assuming that you are under the threshold the rates are 45p per mile for the first 10k then 25p per mile thereafter. (I think just a typo from Mark there. I've done it myself. 10k still in your mind and your fingers write down 10p even though your brains saying 25p!).
cheers,
Shaun.
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Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
Presuming you are sole trader i.e self employed not LTD CO and you are not registered for VAT then I have a nice easy excel spreadsheet that is perfect for you to record your mileage.
Find me on interweb by following link in my signature then email me your email on my 'contact us' page and I will forward to you, because, I too am a 'nice man'
Yes im way under the vat threshold.. and ill definately take at look at your spreadsheet....
I have a couple of other questions but i dont want to start another thread...
I do my assessment online as i have done for 2 years now. I noticed earlier that I can view and amend last years and the previous years figures. so thats 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 figures. I presume this would be ok to do as i want to change my total expenses from deisil receipts/running costs to mileage only. So basically there would be an increase in the allowable expenses box by about £800 for both years.
1) Would altering the figures flag up a repsonse from the HMRC.
I know that I can obtain records for all the towns and addresses that ive worked at everyday for both those years and its just a case of the painfull job of transfering them to a spreadsheet.
2) I was made to do an NVQ as I needed it by law apparently, where an assesor came out and watched me work and then gave me a certificate, literally pointless... It cost me £400. Can I submit this into my expenses?
However, I don't know whether you'd be able to amend 2009-10 and 2010-11, as you mentioned in your other post that you bought your van for £2,000 about 4 years ago. The idea is that you change the way of claiming when you change your vehicle, not look back over the last 4 years, work out which way would be best to claim, and then amend on that basis. Logically, if you wish to amend 2009-10 and 2010-11, you should also amend the rest all the way back to when you bought your old vehicle.
Perhaps someone on here has more experience of amending previous year's tax returns and can comment, it's not something I've done very often. I know it's easy enough to do, it's the Revenue's additude to something like this that I'm more concerned about.
