Uber Tax return Accountants Guide
Uber is a leading transportation company, operating in 633 countries worldwide. It has its headquarters in San Francisco in the United States. The company mostly operates via the mobile app and allows users to book vehicles via the application. Also, independent, self-employed drivers can register on the app or website and become a member of Uber community. They allow attractive rates per miles and also flexible timings as per driver preferences. The company has got firm roots even in the United Kingdom.
What are the allowable expenses for Uber
Drivers?
Knowing the list of allowable expenses is important as it will reduce your tax bill. You need to pay tax on the amount earned minus the allowable business expenses. So make sure you keep a note of these.
- Mileage claim – You can do this claim if you own the car. The
rates are 45p for the first 10k miles and 25p thereafter. If you make this
claim you are not eligible to claim for the cost of the car, servicing,
and insurance.
- Car purchase – If you purchase a new vehicle, you may able to claim it all (depending on the private use) or the cost over a few years. Rates are as follows :
- 75g/km-130g/km (CO2) you will get 18% capital allowances.
- 130g/km or more you will get 8% capital allowances
- Car lease payments – You can redeem the monthly cost of the lease as well as fuel cost, servicing, insurance, and repair cost.
- Uber commission and service charges
- Tolls and Parking charges
- Business usage of your phone
- Accountants fees
- Vehicle and Public Liability insurance
- Car cleaning
- Bank charges
The four major bookkeeping requirements for tax management of an Uber driver are as follows:
1. You must register yourself as a self-employed individual on the HMRC website,
2. Make sure that you keep the receipts and expenses of all the business transactions handy.
3. Complete self-assessment of the income and expenses must be done prior to 31st January of each year.
4. Any pending tax or National Insurance must be paid before the due date of 31st January.
However, being an independent self-employed driver makes it difficult for some people to handle their taxes. Few drivers are not educated enough about the taxes and other legal guidelines of bookkeeping. Due to this, they may land up in paying extra money or some kind of penalties as well. To avoid such a situation, it is very much important to understand the tax mechanism and hire a proper accountant for your needs.
How to find a good accountant for your
business:
There are several accounting firms as well as private accountants that provide accounting services for Uber drivers to
manage their accounts in the UK. As there are lots of receipts and expenses on a daily basis, the bookkeeping process is little tedious, but if the driver maintains a proper logs or file of the receipts then it can become very easy.
Many of the accounting firms also provide Mobile apps to the uber drivers to record their transactions in an easy way.
Major responsibilities of the firms include:
- Helps in creating profile in HMRC
- Does auditing to judge the real profit of the driver
- Can provide mobile app for the HMRC Self-assessment, Housing benefit applications as well to know your tax credits
- Keep track and note of all the business income and expenditure
- Register details of the vehicle mileage and other details of the vehicle
- Provides accounts that are ready to be submitted for filing HMRC Self-Assessment return
- Gives advice on record keeping
- Helps in Tax investigations.
The cost of hiring an individual accountant for tax consultation in the UK can be less than 250 GBP, however, for companies; it can vary between 600 to 650 GBP. The services provided may vary as per the pricing. You must research the company or individual over the internet properly and read reviews and ratings before hiring for your tax management.
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