Offsetting against income tax

[jasmin26]

Hi as well as being employed i have am self employed on a part time basis. The only communication i have with the company i do work for is via emails and also a forum, can i offset the cost of a new laptop against my income tax ? TIA

[buildersmate]

If you are self-employed you presumably complete a self-assessment tax return. There is a section in there where you enter details of your expenses to be offsetted against the self-employed income. That is where you would enter such details.
As to whether HMRC will allow it, you would have to see what they say. You would need to maintain that the laptop is wholly and exclusively for your business use.

[jasmin26]

thanks for your quick reply buildersmate , that is really helpful.

[Skyline D]

You don't need to maintain that the laptop is wholly and exclusively for business use, merely that the expense you calim for is wholly and exclusively for business use.

If you only use the laptop for business you can claim for it without a problem (technically it should be capitalised and capital allowances claimed on it but you'd get 100% in year one under current rules anyway).

If you use th laptop 50% for business and 50% for private then you can effectively have a private addback of 50% for personal use and claim the balance. Or any other percentage you are prepared to justify.

In the real world however, almost everyong would claim for it in full and the Revenue are fairly unlikely to even question it.

[Skyline D]

I really should proof read before I post!

"calim" should read "claim" of course. There's an "e" missing from a "the" in the third paragraph. And "everyong" in the final one should read "everyone".

This forum would benefit from an edit post facility.

[jasmin26]

Thanks for that skyline D .