Sole trader: can I business expense gym?

[Ginlette]

Hear me out! A gym near me offers a standard membership and then another membership where for an extra £25 a month you can use their coworking space too.
Since I was looking at signing up to a coworking anyway, can I business expense my membership? Or transfer £25 a month from business to personal account?

Similar question re house: I chose this house to rent specifically because it has an extra room I have as an office. Is it a good idea to work out the m2 of the office room and "pay" that amount from my business account to personal account every month? Or should I just deduct the full year when doing SA?

don't you have an accountant to advise on these things

Ask your accountant.

No, you cannot do either

For the first one I would think you could claim the extra £25 part, not the whole amount!

use of home as an office - well… I don’t think it’s reasonable to do it on a m2 basis as an equivalent Jodie without that room wouldn’t cost you that much less would it.
Theres guidance online about what you can claim

No, you can’t expense your gym membership as it’s not a cost which is “wholly and exclusively for business”.

Don’t transfer money for use of your home, but you can calculate the usage when you fill in your tax return: https://www.gosimpletax.com/blog/working-from-home-expenses/#:~:text=means%20saving%20money.-,When%20self%2Demployed%2C%20there%20are%20many%20remote%20working%2Drelated,Rent%20and%20mortgage%20interest%20costs

Don’t think it’s as simple as that! You should see what people claim for 🤣

Gym - no don't be daft of course you can't.
Home - you can usually agree a standard 'use of home as office' fee as an allowable expense.
BUT
as everyone else has said, this is why you have an accountant.

You could probably put in the £25 per month as office expenses and an amount for use of home as office.

I’m surprised so many people believe self employed individuals all have an accountant!

You can claim the £25 for the office, you need an invoice from the gym for this every month to show what you are paying for if you are not paying from your business account (which you should be doing).
You can claim for your home, there is a flat rate amount depending on how much you are at home, or you can work out how much of the house you use purely for business use and for how many hours, then you can claim a proportion of your mortgage INTEREST amount only or rent plus a proportion of any other utilities you have used such as electricity.
Be aware that if you are claiming part of your house is solely for business use only, you may be liable to pay business rates on that, as well as your mortgage company or landlord and home insurer need to be aware you run a business from home. You can't just skip half the formalities but claim back the expenses.

The gym element - definitely not.

The £25 for coworking space - yes provided it’s “wholly and exclusively” for business purposes, ie. you don’t use it for socialising.

Working from home - you can use HMRCs flat rate (link below). The alternative is to proportion actual expenses, usually based on rooms in the house but by m2 would work too. As long as you use the same treatment each year and can prove expenses/workings if HMRC ever ask.

https://www.gov.uk/simpler-income-tax-simplified-expenses/working-from-home

As an accountant, this post is a prime example of why I feel all self employed people SHOULD have an accountant.

What they claim and what they'd be allowed to claim if HMRC enquired into their tax returns are two completely different things. So much is "claimed" only because HMRC check so few!

Co worker space yes, gym no, there’s online calculators which easy to use to work out home working expenses.

I was about to say similar (although I’m not an Accountant)
An Accountant should pay for themselves, mine does

You can't work in two places at once - so you can't claim (even if it's allowed) for both the gym workspace AND home office, surely?

@Loverofoxbowlakes
Why?
Salaried people with flexibility work from home in their home office and also go into their company office from time to time, as far as I understand it their companies often give them work specific laptops and phones to use from home too?

Well they should do... in the long run accountants save you money.

Well that's because being an employee is not the same as being self employed, and different rules apply for each. They're not interchangeable states and I strongly suggest you get an accountant who understands these matters so you don't get yourself in hot water!

A salaried person who is working from home doesn’t have their company pay part of their rent, they are allowed (if they can be arsed) to claim something via their tax return for part of rent/utility expenses that they have already paid personally.

I have a work phone and a work laptop, which are both owned by my work and which I have to return to my work if I leave or if they want to change the phone type etc.

I also have a personal phone and personal laptop which I paid for from post tax income and which are mine.

i

What does £25 per month buy in a Co working space? I assume only a few days a month, that’s fairly cheap.

I know exactly what people can claim for