If you are working as a contractor or freelancer, expenses can be a complicated matter and as HMRC are now clamping down on tax avoidance, it is leaving many contractors with concerns about investigations over unpaid taxes.
Working through an umbrella company can help to make this minefield a little easier. As a compliant business, they are required to monitor expenses and only process legitimate claims, helping to reduce the risk of investigation and potential prosecution of the contractor by HMRC.
So let’s have a look at what expenses you can claim as a freelancer or contractor?
There are two types of expenses – chargeable and non-chargeable. Chargeable expenses are any costs that your agency or client has agreed to reimburse to you. These will usually be invoiced through the umbrella company and may well require an expense form, signed by the client, to support the claim.
Non-chargeable expenses are the out of pengeluaran hk pocket costs that you have incurred as a direct result of your assignment work. These costs will need to be shown in the Expenses section of your online timesheet so that the umbrella company can process them as a tax benefit when you are paid.
Any non-chargeable expenses are processed as a tax benefit and help reduce your tax liability. Your chargeable expenses are added to your invoice value and are reimbursed by your agency or client. You therefore receive the full value of the expense back provided that the expense is allowable for tax purposes.
It is also incredibly important that you retain receipts for all the expenses that you claim. HMRC select cases for detailed investigation and if your case were to be selected they would want to see evidence that you have incurred the expenses that you have claimed.
If you are investigated and you do not have receipts to support your claims, you will find yourself in a lot of trouble. You would be made to pay back any underpaid tax, a penalty of similar value and interest for the time you have held onto the additional funds. Worst-case scenario – you could be prosecuted for tax evasion so it really isn’t worth claiming in respect of expenditure for which you don’t have a receipt!