My Taxation

& The Self Assessment Tax Return Form

The capital allowances section of the self assessment tax return form is the most difficult for people who are self employed and not conversant with at least a minimum knowledge of accounting and the tax system. The difficulty in this section of the tax return form is that it is an area which many start up businesses may not have come across before. It is an area which affects not just the calculation of the tax allowances and knowledge of the tax rates but also how an item becomes considered for such tax allowances.

The first step towards claiming capital allowances is to understand that not all purchases which may have been entered into the accounts are treated the same for tax purposes. 100% of the purchase price of the majority of items is deducted from income to produce a net taxable profit. Purchases of certain items where that item is not consumed by the business in a single year but may be used by the business in both the current year and future years are not expensed in the year of purchase but classified as fixed assets.

A fixed asset includes not just the original cost of the item but also the cost of alterations, improvements and extensions of the asset. The fixed asset cost does not include the repairs and maintenance of that asset which may be treated as a normal business expense and written off against income when incurred. Accounting records need to be kept of fixed asset purchases in order for the capital allowances to be calculated and included in the self assessment tax return.

Having identified certain items as fixed assets the normal accounting practise is to use a technique called depreciation to write off the cost of the asset against profits over the expected life of that asset.