If you run your own business, there are a huge range of costs that you can claim as legitimate expenses. This is a fantastic way to reduce the amount of tax that you pay each year. If you’re sensible, and keep hold of all of your receipts, including those for the £1 parking, you can save yourself a fair chunk of cash at the end of the year. So, we hear you ask, “What can we claim for?”

Car:

If you use your own car for business, you can claim 45p per mile for the first 10,000 miles, then 25p per mile after that. Make sure you record every business mile as you go, to maximise your claim. Alternatively it might be possible to claim for a percentage of total running costs depending on your circumstances.

Motorbike:

If you’re using your motorbike, you can claim 24p per mile, irrelevant of how many miles you travel.

Bicycle:

This is the ultimate in terms of tax savings and helping the environment. If you use your own bike for work purposes, you can claim 20p per mile!

Telephone:

If you’re just starting out and using your home or mobile telephone then a proportion of these costs can be taken into account too.

Office goods:

You can claim for anything in your office that you need for running your business. Paper, pens, staples, you name it. Once again, rolls of tape only cost a few pence, but if you save up all of those receipts, it’s worth it, at the end of the year.

Rent and Bills:

If you work from home, you can claim a percentage of your mortgage, bills and rent directly to your company. This is fairly complex, so we’ve covered it in more detail on this post.

Capital allowances:

Another area to keep an eye out for is capital allowances. This includes things like machinery, gifts of equipment to charity and even fixtures. You can’t claim for the expenses on some of these things and so instead you must claim for a capital allowance. It can be quite a complicated area though. Needless to say, this is probably best discussed with us, on a one to one basis. Just contact us for more information.

There are other things that you can claim expenses for and HMRC have a full list here if you operate your business as a limited company.

Needless to say, it’s best to go through your individual requirements with a qualified accountant. We’re always happy to help, and an initial consultation is free 🙂

Image courtesy of http://www.morguefile.com