Simplified Expenses for UK Sole Traders: How Flat Rates Work
If you drive for work or do some of your work from your kitchen table, you’ve probably wondered whether it’s worth calculating the exact cost of every mile or every kilowatt-hour. HMRC has a shortcut for this called simplified expenses – a set of flat rates you can claim instead of working out actual costs for specific parts of your business. It isn’t a legal requirement and it isn’t for everyone, but for a lot of UK sole traders it removes a genuinely tedious slice of admin. Here’s how it actually works, who’s allowed to use it, and how to think about whether it’s worth it for you.
Read MoreUK Sole Trader Allowable Expenses: The Complete Guide
If you’re a UK sole trader, working out which costs count as allowable expenses is one of the most valuable things you can get right – every pound of a genuine business cost you claim is a pound that doesn’t get taxed as profit. It’s also an area where people go wrong in both directions: under-claiming out of caution, or over-claiming out of guesswork, and the second risks an HMRC enquiry. This guide covers the main categories of allowable expenses, what falls outside them, the principle HMRC applies to every claim, and why good records matter more than ever now that Making Tax Digital is rolling out. Where a specific rate or threshold is involved, we’ll point you to gov.uk rather than guess.
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