Self employed training allowable for tax

[gaff]

Hi,

I working in the marine/offshore industry, and need to do some courses in order to upgrade my certification, these will set me back several thousand pounds.

The work I do is marine contracting work, I was wondering if anyone knows if it would be allowable to offset the courses against tax?

Can I claim self employed training expenses ? - JF Financial : Online Accountants

That site says "essentially in order for any form of training to be allowable for tax it must be incurred wholly or necessarily for the purposes of the trade", the courses I'm going to do are not exactly essential for the job, but are more of an upgrade, I think that I shouldn't claim them, but I've spoken to other people who are in a similar position who have been advised by an accountant that it can be claimed, but that person was running through a limited company so would be slightly different rules for that.

Can anyone advise if it would be correct to claim for these courses?

[northernladuk]

It can be a grey area. If it's needed to do your job it's claimable. If it's an bolt on that expands your skills and allows you to get different types.of work in the future it's not. You'll have to make that call I am afraid.

There is some wiggle room that the inspector won't really know if it's technical and closely related.

There are those that will say you won't get inspected so claim it anyway but that's, again, your call.

[SueEllen]

OP if you talk like that to your accountant then they will tell you, you can't claim them.

If you explain why and how they are relevant to your current contract without hesitation then they will very likely say fine.

[Louisa@AardvarkAccounting]

It can be a grey area. If it's needed to do your job it's claimable. If it's an bolt on that expands your skills and allows you to get different types.of work in the future it's not. You'll have to make that call I am afraid.

+1 on this.

Training is one of those areas that if it was questioned, you'd need to demonstrate that it was effectively a 'refresher' on skills that you already had, which were part of the trade for your business.

It needs to be training/updates, for example if you attend a course that tells you about new developments/legislation in your industry, this would be allowable.

However if you are learning a new skill, this would not be allowable as this is capital in nature, rather than an expense.

Ultimately, you will have to make the decision on whether you could argue this if it came down to it

[NotAllThere]

...

Ultimately, you will have to make the decision on whether you could argue this if it came down to it

And make sure you rehearse your argument for if you're inspected.

[b r]

Why wouldn't it be claimable, if you worked for a company ANY training costs (and salary/expenses) would be set against income so no different for you.

[northernladuk]

Why wouldn't it be claimable, if you worked for a company ANY training costs (and salary/expenses) would be set against income so no different for you.

You don't know that. They provide training so the company can grow I. E. An investment. You don't know they are claiming any tax breaks.

Rules for bigger companies are different (or applied differently).

[SueEllen]

You don't know that. They provide training so the company can grow I. E. An investment. You don't know they are claiming any tax breaks.

Rules for bigger companies are applied differently.

FTFY

Same rules - the larger the company the more jobs you can train an employee up for so it can be a legitimate cost. For example the NHS can train someone up for virtually any role you can think of due to their size, there as a single person window cleaning company can only train someone up to do just that.

[northernladuk]

FTFY

Same rules - the larger the company the more jobs you can train an employee up for so it can be a legitimate cost. For example the NHS can train someone up for virtually any role you can think of due to their size, there as a single person window cleaning company can only train someone up to do just that.

Thank you for that. I knew they were different but not exactly why so thanks for the clarification.

So WSES.

[SueEllen]

Thank you for that. I knew they were different but not exactly why so thanks for the clarification.

The HMRC regulations in those booklets aren't company size specific.