Offset your mortgage interest and council tax

Aug 15, 2008

HMRC (Revenue and Customs) hasn't been shouting about it, but there's good news for Britain's 3.6 million self-employed workers, says James Daley in The Independent. New guidance issued by HMRC states explicitly that self-employed workers can offset their mortgage interest and council tax against their income tax bill; expenses that accountants have traditionally believed to be "off-limits". Angela Beech, a partner at Blick Rothenburg, said that her company had been given the impression in the past that doing so could jeopardise the capital gains tax exemption if and when the property was sold. A spokesman for the HMRC said that the self-employed had always been able to offest interest, but conceded that this was the first time the matter had been formally clarified.

And that's not all. The HMRC guidance (ref BIM47825) also gives useful examples about claiming other expenses such as heating, electricity and external redecoration. A proportion of various costs can be claimed providing certain criteria are met, for example the area of the home is used exclusively for business purposes for a prescribed amount of time.

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