Tax extra income earned (€2,500 per year) doing Mystery Shopping

[Jano]

Hi -

I'm a full time employee but in 2006 and 2007 I did a bit of Mystery Shopping for extra income which came to approx €2500 in each of the two years.

Does anyone know about making a tax return on this income?

Can I claim mileage for the driving I did to each location against my fee paid to the company I did the audits for?

If so I will have made a small loss and then can I offset this against my PAYE income for that time period to claim an overpayment of tax?

Are there any other expenses I could claim?

I typed reports on my PC at home for each audit and emailed these to the company commissioning the audit.

I would be grateful for any advice!!

Sorry about the previous post - title didn't explain properly.

 

[caper]

Re: Tax extra income earned (€2,500 per year) doing Mystery Shopping

Hi -

I'm a full time employee but in 2006 and 2007 I did a bit of Mystery Shopping for extra income which came to approx €2500 in each of the two years.

Does anyone know about making a tax return on this income?

Can I claim mileage for the driving I did to each location against my fee paid to the company I did the audits for?

If so I will have made a small loss and then can I offset this against my PAYE income for that time period to claim an overpayment of tax?

Are there any other expenses I could claim?

I typed reports on my PC at home for each audit and emailed these to the company commissioning the audit.

I would be grateful for any advice!!

Sorry about the previous post - title didn't explain properly.

What do you mean by mystery shopping?
You mean you got 2,500 by claiming back tax?
If you did how do you go about this?

 

[Joe1234]

Re: Tax extra income earned (€2,500 per year) doing Mystery Shopping

What do you mean by mystery shopping?
You mean you got 2,500 by claiming back tax?
If you did how do you go about this?

Mystery shopping is a job/self employment. The Op earned 2,500 by doing this job.

 

[Jano]

Re: Tax extra income earned (€2,500 per year) doing Mystery Shopping

Mystery Shopping is where you go into a store and pose as a customer. You ask questions as instructed in a scenario given to you in advance. You then write a detailed report at home which you email to the agency. The fee is usually €35 paid by an agency on behalf of the owner of the business who wants to check standards/service. I earned the €2500 from the fees over the period. I haven't declared it for tax yet as I started near the end of 2006. it wasn't financially worthwhile really when you take into account wear and tear on your car etc and the distance travelled from town to town and the time taken to type reports.

 

[Jano]

Re: Tax extra income earned (€2,500 per year) doing Mystery Shopping

What I really need advice on is whether I can claim the mileage rate of 78.32 cent per km as an expense against this income. Otherwise I will have to pay tax on the total from fees and would be really out of pocket!!

 

[MsGinger]

I don't think you can claim the mileage rate, this should be paid by the company.

However I managed to claim back tax for mileage done on behalf of a company, but you need to work it out based on total mileage e.g.

You had 1,000 mileage working for this company out of a total of 10,000 miles so you can claim the cost of 1,000 miles petrol (details on AA website) and 10% of car maintenance costs against tax paid. I have the full details at home so will post more later.

 

[ubiquitous]

Re: Tax extra income earned (€2,500 per year) doing Mystery Shopping

.. so you can claim the cost of 1,000 miles petrol (details on AA website) ....

No you can't. You can only claim by reference to actual costs incurred by you, and relevant %s thereof relating to business use.

 

[Jano]

Re: Tax extra income earned (€2,500 per year) doing Mystery Shopping

Thanks for the replies. I didn't work for the company as an employee. I had to bill them for the €35 fee per visit to each store and they did not cover any expenses such as mileage. I would drive maybe a 90 mile round trip and visit 3 stores in the day for which i would bill them for 3 x €35. The fee was fixed and no mileage was paid. I was to be responsible for my own tax and only accepted audits if I got more than 1 in the same location as some stores were 40+ miles from my home and would not have been worth doing otherwise.