buying a car for childminding and tax

[xshellbellex]

Hi all

I've had to buy a 7 seater for childminding as my other car was too small.

I am aware I can claim 45p a mile or a % of the expenses for my car (insurance, tax MOT ....)
What extra can I claim since I have bought the car for my business? can i claim a % of the loan or interest on the loan or % of the value of the car?

Any advice please, thanks

[christine e]

You can either do the 45p a mile route or the other think it is called capital depreciation where you take the value of the car and for example will say it cost £10,000 then you take 8% = £800 you then need to work out (by keeping a mileage log) the number of business miles so for this example we will say 50% is business use so we take 50% of £800 = £400. You then take 50% of all petrol, insurance, mot, service etc etc and add to the £400 and that is the amount you can put down as expenses. The following year you start with a value of £9,200 as the value for the car and then take 8% from that figure but do watch out as HMRC do change the depreciation allowance from time to time. Not sure what you do about the loan but I'm sure Mr A will come along soon and advise.

[Chatterbox Childcare]

If you do the .45p per mile that is it for the car costs

Both in .45p and CD you can claim the BUSINESS percentage of the interest

[xshellbellex]

I think what i will do is the 45p a mile so much easier as i keep a log of every journey I take. I am busy in my area as I am the only one who can take kids to a school a bit further (other schools are full) so i do the school trip twice every day and a nursery trip to same area once a day so i clock up some miles. I rarely use my car for personal use it is 90% childminding really

[MrAnchovy]

Christine and Debbie have covered the main points, just a couple more:

You say you do a lot of miles, bear in mind that you can only claim 45p for up to 10,000 miles, after that it is 25p.

Working out how much interest you have paid is not easy, you can use this calculator (http://money.guardian.co.uk/calculator/form/0,,603119,00.html) to work it out.

Finally, and most important, although you cannot change which method you use for as long as you keep the car, you CAN resubmit your return changing your mind. So by the time you have to submit this year's return in January 2014 you will have 18 months of expenditure to compare, and you can change this by resubmitting online up to January 2015 giving you 30 months!

[leopardlady]

I think what i will do is the 45p a mile so much easier as i keep a log of every journey I take. I am busy in my area as I am the only one who can take kids to a school a bit further (other schools are full) so i do the school trip twice every day and a nursery trip to same area once a day so i clock up some miles. I rarely use my car for personal use it is 90% childminding really

I have a 7 seater just for childminding, however I had it already so have not claimed for the purchase. I have a second car which I use for personal use as the 7 seater is far to expensive. I am assuming that I can claim 100% of the vehicle expenses in this case? Can anyone verify this please?

[vdubnut]

I have a 7 seater just for childminding, however I had it already so have not claimed for the purchase. I have a second car which I use for personal use as the 7 seater is far to expensive. I am assuming that I can claim 100% of the vehicle expenses in this case? Can anyone verify this please?

id like to know this as my t5 transporter minibus is used only for minding due to the fact that i own 4 other vehicles (yes car mad ) the tax is horrendous at £448 would be nice if i could claim a lot of that back - i know other businesss can claim the fulll costs of a company vehicle

[Tunja]

I have a 7 seater just for childminding, however I had it already so have not claimed for the purchase. I have a second car which I use for personal use as the 7 seater is far to expensive. I am assuming that I can claim 100% of the vehicle expenses in this case? Can anyone verify this please?

If you use the car exclusively for business you can claim 100% of the running costs including car tax, MOT, RAC/AA, servicing, valeting, new tyres, fuel, oil, screen wash and a winding down of the value under capitol expenses. (If an expensive car then only £3000/year allowed so it can take a long time to wind down a people carrier.)

If you use a car for some private use then you can work out from your mileage what percentage is for childminding and offset the car expenses to that value.

It depends on your mileage which method saves most against your tax bill.

[vdubnut]

If you use the car exclusively for business you can claim 100% of the running costs including car tax, MOT, RAC/AA, servicing, valeting, new tyres, fuel, oil, screen wash and a winding down of the value under capitol expenses. (If an expensive car then only £3000/year allowed so it can take a long time to wind down a people carrier.)

If you use a car for some private use then you can work out from your mileage what percentage is for childminding and offset the car expenses to that value.

It depends on your mileage which method saves most against your tax bill.

Fab that could do me a big favour

[MrAnchovy]

Writing down allowances for cars are now very complicated and depend mainly on CO2 emissions. For a people carrier it is unlikely that you can write down more than 8% of the cost each year, with the allowance reduced by the proportion of any private use.

HMRC guidance starts here (http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/camanual/CA23535.htm), but I am afraid it is very technical and you need all sorts of other bits of background knowledge such as how do you treat an asset which you already own which you start using for business purposes, what happens when you sell or stop using an asset etc.