Hi,
I am a sole trader and want to claim the £4 per week for use of home as office. I have looked through the forums but they seem to be questions relating about how you split the costs when claiming over the £4 and having personal and business expenses from the same bank account.
I have a cupboard in my bedroom which is my office space. I have my IT equipment, paperwork etc in there so I don’t realistically want to claim more than this and my actual turnover is very low. i have a separate bank account so there is no confusion over personal/professional expenses.
Do I set myself up as a supplier and invoice myself for x amount of weeks at £4 per week then pay from my business account to my personal account and tag it via the proprietor drawings account?
I would simply create a fake supplier (e.g. “Deductible expenses”) and raise an purchase for the appropriate amount against the “Use of home as office” code, and mark it as paid from your proprietor drawings account. You don’t actually need to pay yourself any money (unless you want to), it’s just a matter of recording it in the books so you can offset the allowance against your income when it comes to completing your tax return. The important thing is to have a purchase recorded against the right nominal code.
Of course if you do want to actually pay into your personal bank account for these allowances then you would treat that as a transfer to drawings, but it doesn’t affect the tax position one way or the other.