Advice on doing expenses

C

cousin_borat

Registered User
Messages
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I attended a local authority training on Bookkeeping and Taxation as well as purchasing Tax Magic 2008 which I'm working my way through.

However I have a gap in knowledge regarding maintaining my expenses.

Director and employee or a ltd company and recently began trading properly. I am looking for a resource on filing and processing expenses.

Thanks!
 
I'm not 100% sure what you're asking here. Can I ask, for my own information, whether you find "Tax Magic 2008" useful? I saw it advertised in the weekend newspapers and wondered if it's worth the cost, which seems quite high to me. Isn't all of that information available from the Revenue website? The other booklet by the same guy (TaxBooklet 2008) seems better value. Has anybody read both/either completely? If so would you recommend either one? Is there anything in either book that one couldn't read elsewhere? Many thanks.
 

That could be said of most books. TM does pull a lot of stuff together on one place, concisely. For that, you pay. Same as any other specialist book. If you have a specific query, like the OP then Googling the basic text of your question can give some information. eg. expenses etc. are available from Revenue website.

[broken link removed]
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(no connection with TM 2008 or its author)
 
PetPal said:
I'm not 100% sure what you're asking here.
Click to expand...
Hi PetPal, could you tell me where else I should ask? I'm a company director asking about filing expenses for myself.

As per the other poster Tax Magic is very handy in that it brings all that information together. I also bought the PDF version which is better value. I also find that for reference questions like Tax and IT Law in my case it's much better to have the book to hand to flick through that go online.

Now back on topic, can anyone help me with expenses?
 
Tax Magic is a good book but unless you are already well-versed in tax and accountancy matters, it might be dangerous to rely heavily or solely on it as a basis for determining your own tax position as a company director or business owner.
 
What we do is we set up an excel sheet with columns

Date, Day, Job ref, Journey details, miles / kms done, 5 hours or more out of office, 10 hours or more out of office, overnight stay, other out of pocket expenses ( tolls etc )

We then fill this in on a daily basis total it up using revenue approved / civil service rates - print it weekly or monthly and sign it

Have another director sign it also.

pay yourself the lolly

keep all records for min 7 years
 
To give you a simple answer...

Keep all your receipts/invoices for your business expenses and record them in Excel, or whatever software package you use to keep your accounts. If you don't use a computer then simply keep an orderly record of them in a separate section in a ledger. Something that's easy to browse and total-up for year-end.

Pay yourself for these expenses each month via cheque, or some other form of traceable payment. At the end of the year, deduct the total for all these expenses from your profits for the purposes of tax calculations.

There are probably bits I've left out but that's the simple way to do it. There's no exact method. Just any way that can be checked or audited easily if required.

Oh, and remember to include the VAT (if there is any) on your VAT3 returns.
 
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