Receipts

[swirlyarts]

What do you do when you buy materials etc from car boots? Obviously you don't have receipts but I was just wondering what other people do? Went to one last weekend and bought some fab material for chickens!

[Apple Tree Crafts]

Hmm.......

I've done that and it's a hard one. Bit of a grey area if they can't give you a chit. I've scribbled ...um..a...er...made up receipt before, but for the proper amount, no fiddling


And I have had some brill bargains from the Boots....Four metres of Laura Ashley fabric for 50p, sold on eBay for £24.87! That bought me a lot of eBay fabrics for making my things.

I suppose it depends how much the fabric costs from the boot sale. I would write 50p into my accounts...but a few £££'s would be accounted for.

Jules

[Sparklez]

The booklet I got when I registered for tax, said that you should keep reciepts for everything, unless it was for a very small amount, however it didn't clarify what a very small amount was.

Carol

[swirlyarts]

Hmmmm - I'll have to ask the accountant when I next see him

[paulinespassions]

Hi Ive just been reading all these posts about taxes and I'm lost I sometimes
do a market stall but they dont give receipts for the table expenses .I only sell my cards as a small business I do not have another job I have only been doing it since march this year and I havent made a profit at all yet but I keep hoping that one day it will take off. What do I have to claim for as expenses
like electric,heat,etc I work from home and I live in a council house I started this to try to get off benefits but I guess I should have looked into it more
before I started. Please can someone advise me.

pauline

[MrSwirl]

Hi Ive just been reading all these posts about taxes and I'm lost I sometimes
do a market stall but they dont give receipts for the table expenses .I only sell my cards as a small business I do not have another job I have only been doing it since march this year and I havent made a profit at all yet but I keep hoping that one day it will take off. What do I have to claim for as expenses
like electric,heat,etc I work from home and I live in a council house I started this to try to get off benefits but I guess I should have looked into it more
before I started. Please can someone advise me.

pauline

If you are working from home, then you can claim a certain percentage of your costs (electricity, heating, refurbishment) against the business. You do not have to have receipts for this (you won't!), but it is probably worth keeping your personal receipts and some kind of explanation of how you came up with the figure you are claiming against the business. For example, if you live in a two-bed house, and use one bedroom solely for crafting, then you could argue that this is about 20% of the house, therefore 20% of the electricity and heating can be claimed. If you own your house (which I'm assuming you don't, but I'll put it here just in case), then you need to be careful about this - you don't want to have to pay business rates, plus if you are claiming it as a business expense, then there is a chance that when you come to sell up, part of the sale would be eligible for capital gains tax, which is exempt for a primary residence.

You can also claim any expenses that are bought wholly, exclusively and necessarily for the business. You can also claim mileage if you drive, or travel to get to places either to buy or sell - as long as you were travelling for business. For example, travelling to another town specifically to buy crafty stuff is OK. Travelling to France on holiday, buying a couple of crafty things, and claiming the whole trip is not.

Strictly speaking, if you don't have a receipt, you can't claim it. However, if you document it, then you would be incredibly unlucky to have it disallowed. If it is disallowed by an HMRC investigation, then as long as you have a reasonable argument about why you claimed it, then they will just ask you to pay it back, rather than dish out any punishment as well.

Even if you haven't made a profit, you should claim the receipts, as you can offset losses from one year against profits from the next (there is a time limit, but I'm not sure what it is).