Education Expenses

[magie73]

Hi,
I am registered and would like to do a degree in childcare probably primary care. I'm going to do this by distance learning.

The aim is to be a childminder and use the course info as aprt of my minding whilst my children are young. Then be fully qualified when my own child is at school when I could either work at a nursery or school.

My question is - can I claim my education expenses as part of my childminding?

hmm not sure

My gut feeling is that expenses incurred in the line of your business including training be borne by the business (I don't know what primary care is, you might need to be prepared to show to Inland Revenue that it is relevant to your practice - if you are doing say Particle Physics then the relevance to your CM practice might not be so easy to show [deadpan face])

Claim in what way? As expenses against tax (don't think so if it's not the cost of the ICP course, others may know more) or as in claim the cost of the course from the local authority? (also don't think so as funding has been SLASHED)
Would be interested to know if anyone knows differently...

I think you need MrA

[warms up Bat signal lights]

Thanks.
Primary school teaching degree is one of the diplomas i was looking at.

The funding has been slashed and most (if not all) courses are now costing. Beacuse of this and the time to do the courses, I thought I might spend the same amount of money on a longer term career path.

Yes, I wanted tax advice as the costs of courses are substantial and I would use my learning to help my mindees wherever I can.

A primary school teaching degree would not be an allowable expense for a childminder. A degree in child care like this one probably would be.

It all depends on whether the learning is intended to enable you to do your current work more effectively (and only in that case it is an allowable expense agaist the income from that work), or to enable you to do something different.

Oh Mranchovy - how about my business degree; I need to pay for the next course (I used Tescos vouchers for the others) could I claim that against tax?

It's not for me to decide unfortunately Kate, it's down to HMRC: in a borderline case I would write to them, giving details of what the course is and why it is necessary for the business you currently run and ask for a ruling.

If you are employed by someone else and they pay for your training, they can almost always claim the cost. Yet another advantage of limited company status.