Just a few questions about expenses I wondered if anyone could help me out with...
I'm trying to get my head around whether I'd be better off claiming simplified expenses or calculating them myself... I plan to work a minimum of 60 hours a month from home, which means I'd be eligible to claim £18 a month if I go with simplified expenses. Not sure how exactly to work it out myself to check if I'd be better off. What do other people do?
Regardless of whether you use simplified or not, how can you prove the hours you actually worked? Say someone registers as a sole trader and claims they are working 60 hours a month but they actually end up doing 1 survey, but spent the rest of time looking for work but not actually earning anything? (I know that's an extreme and unrealistic example, but quite a bit of my 'working from home' time at the moment is being spent on research etc. and not actually earning money yet...does that still count?).
One more thing... do people claim car/travel expenses for mystery shopping/app work (e.g. streetspotr, field agent, etc.)? If so, how do you go about doing it.. is it just a case of keeping a log of the mileage for each particular journey and claiming that? Again, I'm confused about how you can prove you have actually made those journeys?
Sorry if these are silly questions, I've done loads of research on this but I'm still struggling a little bit as this is all new to me!
EDIT: Just remembered one more question (sorry!)...if you claim something as an allowable expense (say, a printer), do you get the cost of the item deducted from your tax bill at the end of the financial year? If so, what if the cost of your purchases throughout the year exceeds the amount of tax you owe?
I'm trying to get my head around whether I'd be better off claiming simplified expenses or calculating them myself... I plan to work a minimum of 60 hours a month from home, which means I'd be eligible to claim £18 a month if I go with simplified expenses. Not sure how exactly to work it out myself to check if I'd be better off. What do other people do?
Regardless of whether you use simplified or not, how can you prove the hours you actually worked? Say someone registers as a sole trader and claims they are working 60 hours a month but they actually end up doing 1 survey, but spent the rest of time looking for work but not actually earning anything? (I know that's an extreme and unrealistic example, but quite a bit of my 'working from home' time at the moment is being spent on research etc. and not actually earning money yet...does that still count?).
One more thing... do people claim car/travel expenses for mystery shopping/app work (e.g. streetspotr, field agent, etc.)? If so, how do you go about doing it.. is it just a case of keeping a log of the mileage for each particular journey and claiming that? Again, I'm confused about how you can prove you have actually made those journeys?
Sorry if these are silly questions, I've done loads of research on this but I'm still struggling a little bit as this is all new to me!
EDIT: Just remembered one more question (sorry!)...if you claim something as an allowable expense (say, a printer), do you get the cost of the item deducted from your tax bill at the end of the financial year? If so, what if the cost of your purchases throughout the year exceeds the amount of tax you owe?