4 ms·
You are most welcome. You are correct, I did not include them in the personal income you receive as I have created the example in the way you would do your tax
by Swinx43 9y ago
You are most welcome. You are correct, I did not include them in the personal income you receive as I have created the example in the way you would do your tax return calculation. So the expenses are deducted from your company profit before tax as it is your company that is incurring the expenses.
You do get reimbursed for those expenses if you make them via your own credit or debit card, otherwise if you use a company card for them you will never have that money touch your own bank account. I do agree that you benefit from being able to use "before tax" money to pay for some of your expenses.
The tricky thing about expenses is that not everything is allowed to be deducted as an expense. If for example you take your client out for a meal and a few drinks and you account for that as Business Entertaining, that amount is not eligible for tax relief and thus you cannot deduct that from your profits to reduce your company's taxable income. It will then get taxed at the company level.
What I am trying to show is that the argument that Freelancers in the UK "avoid" paying tax compared to permanent employees is not true anymore. Yes we do have the ability to plan our tax better. However there seems to be this idea from permanent employees that freelancers are paying only 10% income tax when that really is not the case. There is a slight benefit, and from the above example a little more than £1000. Obviously there are other options and scenarios with spouses being made directors of the company etc. But it is hardly reducing your tax to the 7% achieved by Apple.
One also takes a lot bigger risk since personal injury, illness and non-paying clients do have the ability to derail your earnings in a really big way. If you get the flu and are out for a week that hurts. Or heaven forbid you have an accident and are unable to work for a few months while recovering.
Most of the freelancers I know do it because of the freedom and flexibility they get out of it, not because there are substantial tax advantages.
I would be very interested to hear your thoughts after you have run the numbers yourself.