UKC

Standard rifling through the self assessment jobby, i'm wondering what peoples experiences are with claiming courses for CPD / to maintain current qualifications.

I.e first aid courses to upkeep other qualifications, progressive courses to chase work / maintain best practice.

Any help is much appreciated.

Thanks,
Tom

In reply to TommyH:

Firstly, and I know this seems like nit-picking, but you're not 'claiming anything'. What happens is, you spend money which wholly relates to the business in which you deal. That expenditure reduces your tax liability. Should you end up paying more tax then necessary, you receive a rebate. I

t took an accountant to get my head around this - don't spend money to avoid paying tax, because you pay anyway and you don't ever really have much money to save. This of course depends if you have any grand plan to save for the future, mortgage etc.

As to the question, if the money spent, wholly relates to your business, then it's deductible against tax. It can get murky about retraining for things that are not your normal line of business though, as the tax man sees that as capital investment (apparently).

I assume you're an instructor. I'm not a watersport coach. If I trained to become one HMRC could take the line this falls within my current role as an instructor, thus it would be deductible. They could also take the line that it's a new skill, thus capital investment and so a different kettle of fish. Two advisors have separately given the above advice. They also said that since I'm not a big earner and if I don't take the p*ss then I probably have nothing to worry about.

They also advised against taking advice from randoms on the Internet.

In reply to TommyH:

Absolutely claim the costs of any training/courses that are directly relevant to your business.

Don't forget all those miles as well!

In reply to TommyH:

Tom,

Stuart has given you the correct advice which is exactly the same as I have given you via FB.

Please don't listen to the "absolutely" and "definitely" brigade as they aren't the ones who have to justify the decision

In reply to TommyH:

As my accountant says; "if you don´ t put it down they won´ t give it to you, if you put it down they might give it to you".

In reply to jimtitt:

Which isn't bad advice, but unless I'm mistaken, your accountant is an advisor or agent for you, and it's the individual who is 'at fault' if accounts are wrong or 'inaccurate'. HMRC will be speaking to you, not your accountant.

Now in all likelihood HMRC might just want a coffee and a chat about getting a better accountant. Worse case scenario is they decide to go for some low hanging fruit, seeing as you're there anyway, and start to poke around all your accounts...

In reply to TommyH:

Thanks very much folks, after some advice from folks on here / Facebook groups and a bit of head scratching on HMRC website it's cleared up a fair bit.

Cheers