Being self employed

**Tonks4x4** · 13 February 2009, 19:42

You need to get in touch with the bank and the inland revenue for these answers.

You will need to be VAT registered if you are likely to have a turnover over £67000 or more. If you are not VAT registered you can't charge VAT on your sales.

And as you will be a sole trader no matter how many businesses you have the grand total profit of all of them and any income from the house you rent will be put together to work out your annual tax bill.

Also if you are going to be a landlord you really need to get in touch with local council to get a full breakdown of what you are liable to provide as a landlord ie annual gas inspections etc It is a whole minefield to rent a property and that is without taking into account what type of person you end up with in your property they could turn out to be a right pain in the ar*e and you can't get them out that easily as they have more rights than you do.

I do exacly all the things you are intending to do. Get ready for massive stress levels and no time for family ect.

Good luck

**T2Andy** · 13 February 2009, 20:10

what does t.a.x and v.a.t stand for

**Tonks4x4** · 13 February 2009, 21:38

ok if you deal with just cash you can hide a lot of it! Hey andy.

**AndyP** · 13 February 2009, 21:48

Not sure about the IT or mapping side but I can give you some pointers on being a landlord. First of all make sure you get your mortgage changed to a buy to let / commercial mortgage, if your current morgage provider find out your sub-letting, your in trouble. They do cost a little more, I paid around 1% above a regular mortgage rate for mine but you can also claim back all the interest against tax. Get the provider to give you a breakdown of how you monthly payments are made up of interest and repayment.
You can also claim back any expences on the house, not sure about your mileage though, you'd have to check that. If you get in touch with the IR they will probably put you on self assesment, so you will have to fill in a tax return every year, quite daunting at first but they are quite simple really. The tax return form will detail what you can claim for.

HTH

**Ian Simmonds** · 13 February 2009, 22:30

If you cherish your car, I'd keep it out of the Business equation, maybe claim business use of a private vehicle at 40p a mile... But don't implicate the car as collateral into the business, just in case. You never know what tomorrow brings.

**S2central.net** · 13 February 2009, 23:25

@Shark_90... That sort of info should be available from any decent small business advice centre or any good accountant who looks after such things. I'd say a night spent googling will get most of the answers in terms of what is classified as a valid business expense. I know some folk running their own sole trade business and they pretty much claim as much as they can against the company for tax deductions...

As for flash remapping - I'm guessing you hooked up with a certain outfit based in Blackpool - they look pretty interesting I must say - good credentials I think. If the startup I'm at runs out of money in this climate then I'd probably have little choice to do something similar.

**curlyks2** · 14 February 2009, 04:55

You may have had a look here already, but the HMRC website (link) will have a lot of the answers you seek. For example, the mileage rates (link) at which you can claim against tax are there in black and white.

For VAT, I've heard people get advice to get registered and then at the end of the year to submit forms which effectively say "didn't get to the threshold, nothing due" if that's the case. This way, at least you're registered and prepared for it if you need to be.

On the subject of VAT and expenses, you need to keep a close eye on what items of expenses you can/cannot add VAT to when you recharge to your clients. More here (HMRC link again).

Overall, finding a good accountant will almost certainly pay back. A friend runs his own business as well as being employed, and his various tax affairs are all done by his accountant for less than £500 a year. I know that the outright figure might seem a lot, but the time and hassle it saves is enormous - and a good accountant will spot things which you never knew about.

Best of luck.

Ck.

**shark_90** · 14 February 2009, 09:20

AndyP: I have applied with my current lender to rent the house out and it has been agreed, however yes I will need to change the mortgage over to a BTL over the next 12 months, lets hope I can get a decent rate!

s2central: I'm free to get maps pretty much wherever I like as my equipment isn't locked to a provider, which can only be a good thing for the customer

**S2central.net** · 18 February 2009, 13:08

@Sharky... Assuming you *know* that you are deploying good maps... There's too many idiots doing this now with a cheapy flash box bought from eBay and a CD full of 'remaps' for various cars. Doesn't sound good for customers... You would need to be getting remaps from very good sources only IMHO.

**Rusty** · 18 February 2009, 13:28

Ben, make sure you have liability insurance for the re-mapping. If you get a weak car and it goes pop then you could be in serious trouble.

**S2central.net** · 18 February 2009, 13:47

Yep - all the more likely with 'tiddlywink' remap files too !

**shark_90** · 18 February 2009, 15:18

s2central: The source for my maps is sound, I'm trying to make a business out of this and I think you are aware how incestuous the tuning world and the Audi/VAG scene is. You just can't mess around with other people's cars and expect to get away with it - I have a large internet prescence and most of my business will depend on it, and there's nothing worse than a bit of bad publicity is there? I have decent equipment that many of the Audi shops over here are using, I know AmD are using it as one of their tools. I haven't properly started doing this but I have two well known sources who have agreed to write maps for me and I am planning to approach another but I missed him at ADI and didn't get chance for a chat

Andy: Yes, wouldn't dream of anything else, especially in this day and age with the blame culture.

**Rusty** · 18 February 2009, 15:42

looks like Paul's protectig his patch

**GazzaG60** · 18 February 2009, 15:57

most tuner used to have you sign a form when tuning about liability. like rolling roads do.

i wouldn't want to question you or insult your intellegence shark but id want to know whats going on before blowing it to an ecu. im not sure what mapping experience you have but its essential to understand the needs of an engine at certain points and what your change will do before you do it.

the world of mapping is very clicky. ive seens some so called experts produce tripe on subarus but people still swear by them. funnily enough these people know nothing about mapping. you pay for a day and its nowhere near finished. also not many tuners want the customer to have more power than they have. it wouldn't look good would it.

Being self employed

Being self employed

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