Hardware / Stationary

[Alan @ BroomeAffinity]

Capital Allowances are to be claimed on anything that is not a revenue expense. If it has no long term value then its probably fair to say its a revenue expense and if it has a useful life extending beyond the end of the accounting year in question then it is correct to write it off beyond the accounting period. Its difficult to define though: Looking at my desk, I have a PC which is 9 months old and probably is already valueless but I will only get capital allowances on it as this is defined as capital expenditure. I also have a ruler which I guess is about 5 years old and therefore in reality should have written the cost over its useful life of 5 years but as it only cost about a quid thats never going to happen.

Common sense needs to be applied. A useful rule of thumb therefore is anything above £100 should be capitalised and anything less than this treated as an expense.

[malvolio]

It's not a hard and fast rule, it's a company policy thing so you set your own limit. If you set it at around the price of a decent PC - say £500 - nobody is going to complain. And don't forget that the write off is a way to spread the cost of a significant purchase against 2-3 year's CT, so it's not a bad thing.

[TykeMerc]

I don't think there are any hard and fast rules on this, as pointed out by someone earlier on the thread what your business is involved with can dictate what's a legitimate business expense.

In the case of a console games developer, consoles, handhelds, games software, TV's etc are essential business tools, but to me in my line they wouldn't be.

The hardware cost of an inkjet printer is often less than the ink cartridges, but you wouldn't think twice about putting the cartridges through as valid costs. Common sense has to be applied.

[OrangeHopper]

Any accountants wish to comment?

[d000hg]

Put everything you can find through the books. Leave it to the accountant to blag what is going to be claimable or not.

Its war with the T-man, don’t inflict wounds on yourself by acts such as imposing thresholds on your expenditure.

But if you look like you're trying to push it, aren't you inviting an investigation - which will waste your time even if you are 100% squeaky clean.

[HairyArsedBloke]

Put everything you can find through the books. Leave it to the accountant to blag what is going to be claimable or not.

Its war with the T-man, don’t inflict wounds on yourself by acts such as imposing thresholds on your expenditure.

[ratewhore]

If you can justify it as a valid business purchase then there should be no issue...

[d000hg]

Wonder if I can get a PS3 etc on the business

Most of the freelance programming I do is game development. When I was an employee at a game studio, they used to make us sit and look at newly released games once or twice a month, to see what was out there as competition.

I wonder if that means I can justify a console & big-ass TV etc as needed for my job? Technically I develop only PC games right now, but what do you guys thing?
I did get one client saying if I owned a PSP, he would let me buy specific games and claim them back as being research for his product.

[Sausage Surprise]

If it's moving then it's stationery

[Sockpuppet]

IANAA but my accountant told me anything under £100 can be expensed in the first year.

[OrangeHopper]

What is the accepted threshold where a piece of hardware (e.g. router, printer, scanner, mouse, keyboard) can be put down in the accounts as stationary or similar and not have to be written off at 25% per year?

I used to treat £50 as the threshold but is this now nearer £100?

Thanks in advance.