Startup expenses

[wildfire]

My first contract starts at the beginning of April and I am planning to register a limited company at the same time. I have just bought a new laptop in preparation for the contract work and my question is whether I will be able to claim this as an expense in the 08/09 tax year which will be the first time that I will be required to complete a self assessment? Also, is there any benefit in waiting until the start of the tax year to register the company or is that irrelavant?

Cheers
w

[malvolio]

Do you have an accountant? What do they say? Have you understood that the company is a different legal person to you and its expenses are nothing to do with your self assessment form or your taxation?

FWIW yes the company can back-claim startup exepnses for the company, but it sounds like you need to do some further reading.

[Alan @ BroomeAffinity]

My first contract starts at the beginning of April and I am planning to register a limited company at the same time. I have just bought a new laptop in preparation for the contract work and my question is whether I will be able to claim this as an expense in the 08/09 tax year which will be the first time that I will be required to complete a self assessment? Also, is there any benefit in waiting until the start of the tax year to register the company or is that irrelavant?

Cheers
w

My suggestion would be to incoporate a company now but don't start trading through it until after 05/04. Presumably your agency will be looking for company details before you commence the contract and you'll also need a bank account for the company. Depepnding on your situation this can take a while.

When you register as an employer with HMRC be sure to tell them that you will not be making any payments until after 05/04/08 and then you should only need to deal with 08/09 onward.

As far as your pre-start up expenses are concerned: Yes, you can claim them - just do so on your first out-of-pocket expense claim.

Good luck with the new contract.