How to work out tax for food

[Tammy]

Can anyone help me with working out the amount to put on my accounts for food provided. I realise that the way to work it out is to work out the price of meals that I provide per child but that seems like a very long winded/time consuming thing to do. Is there a list somewhere that anyone has already put together?

Can you tell me how you do this please.

Many thanks

Sam

[Chatterbox Childcare]

I take the total tax bill and take out the goods for my family (wine, toiletries etc), take off specifically for mindees (magazines, stationary etc) and the balance gets divided by the total number of mindees & family, then multiplied by the mindees, plus the specific costs of the mindees.

Sounds complicated so here is an example:

Family of mine = 4 plus 6 mindees

Bill for shopping is £150.00 less £27.00 for me and £22.00 for mindees. Balance of £101.00 divided by 10 and multiplied by 6 = £60.60 plus £22.00 = claim cost of £82.60.

Hope that is clear.

Debbie

[Pauline]

Gosh Debbie, who has given you that information? Was it the tax office?

I've always been told (and we've had quite a few tax visits to childminding groups) that you must work out exactly what you spend on food using your supermarket bills as proof of what you have bought for the minded children.

"Reasonable estimates" (their words) based on what you use to make and cook meals is acceptable but you should still use your bills to work it out.

[Chatterbox Childcare]

We have a lady in our area that works for the inland revenue but helps small businesses and this was her recommendation.

It isn't just based around food but anything you use. I apply it to my gardener, cleaner, window cleaner, sky subscriptions etc...

Debbie

[sarah707]

I've not heard of that method either and I've been on a fair few tax evenings in my time ... yawn!

At the last one, they again went through the advice of keeping your bills for a month and working out a figure which you can use as an estimate for each month to follow...

Of course prices have gone up recently so people might be looking at raising the estimate but good practice would be to save bills for a month again and work it out from what is spent.

Here's the tax link...

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/bimmanual/bim52751.htm

This is a useful publication from Ireland as well... same rules apply there!

http://www.nicma.org/06/publications/IR0607.pdf

Hope this helps

[Chatterbox Childcare]

Whichever method you use, as long as you can justify your methods and figures it will be accepted.

Debbie

[littlegems]

sorry being thick here i think, i havent recieved my ncma accounts book yet so i am a little in the dark! but do you all just put food in for each month, or weekly? daily ?
xx

[Chatterbox Childcare]

This is down to how you do your accounts.

With my method and if I have the same number of children it can be done weekly, monthly or annually.

In the beginning I would do it weekly.

Debbie

[angeldelight]

Gosh Debbie, who has given you that information? Was it the tax office?

I've always been told (and we've had quite a few tax visits to childminding groups) that you must work out exactly what you spend on food using your supermarket bills as proof of what you have bought for the minded children.

"Reasonable estimates" (their words) based on what you use to make and cook meals is acceptable but you should still use your bills to work it out.

This is the way I would do it and would advise you to do the same

It is simple and you really can not go wrong

Also the links that Sarah gave you give good advice

Angel xx

[purple rain]

i do similar... i take off wine, make up etc... then divide the sum by my family (4) and the 3 mindees, so that is 7. i dont seperate cleaning stuff either, i used the only minding accountant this year and they told me not to!

i have to say it was the best £69 i have spent and he puts that through your books for you! much less stress for someone not even entered for maths exam, all those yrs ago!!! lol.