Tax and expenses - not got a clue!!!!!

[cluelessgirl]

Hi

Does anyone know much about tax/self assessment etc?

I have two jobs. My main job is full time, in a school so I just pay my tax via PAYE in the usual way - this is all fine.

I have a second job that involved marking and verifiying assessment decisions for an exam board. This starts in December each year and I usually finigh by July so 7- months a year. This is 100% remote working with no option of going into an office etc. I probably spend an average of 15 hours per week and this makes me a not huge, but significant second income of up to 10K per year.

I have to do a tax self assessment due to the child benefit charge and have noticed that I might be able to claim some expenses for working from home - is this right?

I think that I may be able to claim for the following -

heating for my home office
Use of printer/ink
Laptop - I had to purchase one as I only have a school laptop and wasnt allowed to use it for this other job

am I right in thinking that I could claim for these things? I don't want to appear money grabbing, but as the main earner and with the cost of living etc, I feel that I need to claim what I am entitled to

I am also going to claim for my union subscription for my main job

Does anyone know if I am on the right track?

Not as an employee, no. There's a set rate of tax relief that can be claimed though, I think mine works out to being about £3 a month better off.

If self employed, some expenses.

You can't claim for things that aren't for your self employment.

But you mention only doing this due to child benefit reasons, have you not been declaring the self employment before now?

I'm confused...

There's the working from home amount of £312.

Yes I have always declared everything. Basically we still claim the CB but I pay the tax on it as it allows us to retain some benefits associated with it.

I am not self employed - my second job is a fixed term contract.

so would that come off my tax bill? sorry if I sound thick

Yep when you submit your self assessment you can claim for things directly connected to your self employed job, essentially this is then 'knocked off' your tax bill, I claim for books, stationary, a printer, insurance connected to self employed role.

Do you complete your self assessment online. If so there are notes to help you. If you complete it and save it but don't send it, then go back through checking to make sure you completed the expenses etc.

There are some podcasts available from hmrc that explain about expenses claims etc, and what's allowable.

Is the second job also PAYE? You can claim tax relief on things that have been specifically bought for your job that your employer does not reimburse. So for example if you bought a laptop for £300 and pay lower rate tax at 20% you can claim back £60 same with printer and ink if you only use it for work.

https://www.gov.uk/tax-relief-for-employees

Thanks. I am just not sure how it works as my second role is also PAYE. I don't want to claim for anything that I am not entitled to and then have issued further down the line

You can claim tax relief on £6 a week if you work from home. It wouldn’t be £312 just over half if you work Dec-July from home. Effectively you’d reduce your taxable income by that amount.

HMRC do some really good tutorials, may I suggest you look up some that apply to your situation? You don't seem to have much understanding and it's really important you get this right or it will cause you problems in the future.

Thank you. It looks like I can definitely put my laptop as an expense. Just need to work out the ink etc

Only if you don’t use it for anything else at all.

So this is where I struggle - I purchased it as I need it for my second role. I am not allowed to use my main job laptop for personal use. So i use my new laptop for this role - But I have used it to check my emails etc and not all of these emails relate to this job. I have a real issue with breaking the rules so I don't want to do anything that gets me into trouble.

But you aren't self employed. You have 2 paye jobs. You are only submitting a tax return, because higher earner, over £50k because of the Child benefit aspect.

So the expenses, wfh or laptop or whatever are not relevant, because you aren't self employed.

According to the info on the gov site I am able to claim for equipment that I need to do my job that my employer doesn't provide

So what do you plan on deducting it against??

The tax that I am due to pay?

You should probably speak to an accountant for some proper advice. Because you don’t really understand and this thread is unlikely to help you.

When I was self-employed I couldn’t claim the whole cost of my laptop against my self-employed income because it was over a certain amount and was a capital asset. I had to claim a certain amount per year for depreciation instead. And I always had to factor in some personal use of phones and laptops.

I highly doubt you can just put the entire cost of your laptop down for tax relief.

If you do claim expenses they don’t ‘come off’ your tax bill, they come off the amount of income that is taxed.

You can offset whatever proportion of actual
work use for the equipment.

If the laptop gets used 25% of the time for work and 75% of the time for internet shopping you can’t claim the whole lot as an expense.

No it gets deducted from income, not your tax bill. You would only save the tax liability due in that amount. Plus a laptop would be an asset of your business...

Please please get professional advice.

Oh sorry. I misunderstood. I have no idea then if it's two paye roles.

You cannot claim anything for the laptop or the ink because you are not self employed. All you can claim is the £6 per week work from home allowance for the weeks you work from home.

Yes you can. https://www.gov.uk/tax-relief-for-employees/buying-other-equipment

But the equipment isn't just for work