can i claim for my car? Please help I am utterly thick.....

[Trebuchet]

can barely write as enormous belly in the way......

I am a self employed actress. It costs me a fortune travelling to and from auditions, for jobs that I often don't get. Had a banger for years, it finally died at Christmas.

I absolutely need a car to get to jobs and meetings, I live in a small village with crap public transport. I spent all my savings, sob, on a car at Christmas, £4800. Am I able to claim it as an expense? Approx 85% of its' use is work related, other than work I lead a very small kind of life. Do the shopping in it once a fortnight and see in-laws on the way back from there, in same fortnight I may have travelled to London 5 times, Manchester once and done several shorter trips into town for research stuff.

I'd appreciate any advice, thanks

Are you talking about VAT?

No just as an expense on my tax return. Sadly don't earn enough for vat.

Ask the tax office, I would have thought you could off-set some of your travel expenses against tax (you will need petrol rcpts etc). By the way, why didn't you get a cheaper car if things are tight? Not necessary IMO to spend that much to get a reliable car.

I wouldn't know, I was on my own, clueless and desperate. Didn't want to get sold a dodgy car unknowingly. The only person I know who knows about cars said if I got anything other than nearly new I was just buying other peoples problems so I took his advice and bought nearly new, planning to not have to buy another car for quite some time and run it into the ground.

useful info here on capital allowances