FAQ

This depends on your Profit from Self Employment, Other Income such as Employments, Pensions, Dividends, Interest, Property income. We will advise of how much Tax & National Insurance is due to HMRC & the dates this is required to be paid.

Your UTR (Unique Taxpayer Reference) is a 10 digit number that HMRC create their end to set you up as being Self Employed. This is what they use similar to a National Insurance number to identify you.

Fuel is an allowable expense as this is required in your day to day running of your Driving Instruction business.

Food is not an allowable expense. HMRC see this as a necessity in your every day life and is not a business specific expense.

This is paid directly to HMRC. We provide a document which shows the totals due, Payment Reference number to use and HMRC’s various payment methods.

Similar to food above, HMRC see these as a personal expense which needs to be paid by you if you have the business or not. So these are not a requirement to be able to run your business.

All the money you receive is yours in simple terms. All ourselves and HMRC need to know is that you have received that money. What you do with it, is entirely up to you.

HMRC require you to keep some form of paper trail for up to 7 years. This can either be a physical paper receipt, a bank statement, a fuel card account statement that you can access or a photo of the receipt saved in a digital format.

Payments on Account are a scheme from HMRC which breaks up the amount due into 2 payments, 1st in January and 2nd in July. You fall into these Payments on Account when your Tax due + Class 4 National Insurance total goes over £1,000. It is solely based on your current Tax Return being the exact same next year and HMRC require 2 payment to cover that total. For example your Tax due is £500, your Class 4 National Insurance is £600, this totals £1,100. So HMRC would require £550 in January & £550 in July to total the £1,100. HMRC see this is a way to break up your Tax Bill into two payments so you don’t always have a large payment each January.

Although you have already been taxed on your Employed income, this needs to go onto your Tax Return so we see the overall picture. We take your Self Employed income and add this to your Gross Employed Income to get your overall total. We then see how much Tax is due overall, we remove what Tax you have already paid in your Employment then we notify you how much is the difference required to be paid to HMRC.

As above, we need to see your P60/P45/P11D information so we can see the overall picture of all income received during the year so we give you the correct total to pay HMRC.

Ideally you should be recording your Income and Expenses as you go. We find most of our clients sit in the car at the end of their day, they log on our App and record any Income they received that day and any Expenses they have paid out that day too.

As a Driving Instructor, HMRC do not allow you to claim mileage. As your car is fitted with Dual Controls, this is not treated as a car any more, it is treated as Plant & Machinery. HMRC state vehicles classed in this category similar to Black Cabs, cannot claim mileage, they need to record all of their car expenses such as Fuel, Car Insurance, Car Tax, M.O.T etc…

If you are not a Driving Instructor then mileage can be claimed instead of vehicle running expenses as above. You would need to record what mileage you start the day on and what you finish the day on.

When you change cars, we need to know the price you have paid and if this is was paid outright or if via finance. The easiest way to send us this information is to send us the Car Invoice from the garage and the Finance Agreement.

If you have sold a previous car or stopped using a car in the business, we need to know how much this was sold for, or if you have kept it, we would need to know a fair value such as a quote from a car valuation website based on the car model and mileage.

We advise you to put aside 20-30% of all money you have coming in. So for every £100 you receive, put aside £20-£30. If you save based on your Turnover, this should be more than enough as you are Taxed on your Net profit AFTER expenses & Personal Allowance has been removed.

We are unable to cover every scenario, however it is really taking a step back and thinking if it is required to run the business, you can probably claim it, if it is more personal to you, then this would probably be disallowable.

This is really a best guess. Noone records their usage in a percentage format, however we can only claim the Business element of all expenses, so if there is any private use, we do need to know. This is really taking a step back and thinking is it mainly for the business?, is it 50-50% ?, is it 70-30%. Even if you use your car for example mainly for the business but you get Milk on the way home, this could be 95% business use and 5% private use. We would expect some form of private use unless you have a separate car for private use or a separate mobile phone for private use etc…

We do recommend setting up a Personal Tax Account. This is beneficial for you as you can see various information that HMRC hold about you, such as Employment history showing Income received and Tax paid, Your submitted Tax Returns, your State Pension forecast, your National Insurance contributions and more.

As an Accountant, we make sure everything is done correctly and all aspects are taken into account. Like some trades, you can have a go yourself, however to do a good job and make sure it has been completed in the correct way, you would get a professional in. This is the same for ourselves, we have been trading for over 35 years and we know how to do things correctly.

We work on a first come first served basis. We have found this is the fairest way for all clients, so if you have been with ourselves for 20 years or just joined, the sooner you send your records to us, the quicker we can book you into our diary system and get your records worked on for you. The Tax Year ends the 5th April, so you have from the 6th April to send in your records. The sooner you do this, the sooner we can let you know what is due to HMRC by their deadline of the 31st January.