Telephone line rental/internet expenses

[Leah]

Good evening everyone.

My husband is a self-employed website technician, and I have taken on his accounts. I have book-keeping experience as an employee of a limited company, but this is my first venture into the land of the self-employed!

I know that I can claim expenses/tax relief on explicit business calls from our private telephone line, but I have a couple of questions about the other standing charges from our phone/internet provider.

1) Can I claim a percentage of our telephone line rental for business use? The information I have read at HMRC etc. this evening seemed a bit ambiguous on this point. If I can, is a percentage based on the percentage of business calls out of the total calls made necessary, or is a fixed monthly percentage acceptable?
2) We specifically requested a fully itemised bill in order to separate business from private calls. We will be charged for this. Is this an allowable expense?
3) As a web technician clearly a lot of my husband's business is done online, so is a proportion of our broadband internet line rental an allowable expense? If so, what proportion?

I am aware that we can claim an allowance for the use of our spare bedroom as a home office, but as the room is also used by the rest of the family (and our fish!) and I cannot for the life of me get my husband to keep accurate records of how much business time he is spending in here I think that the gains from doing this would be outweighed by the hassle.

Thanks for any help.
Leah.

[Scalloway]

The HMRC Guidance is on telephone and broadband costs is here.

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/bimmanual/bim47820.htm

I wouldn't worry too much about keeping total accurate records for the use of the room as an office. Make a reasonable estimate and use that.

[Greyhound-Computing]

You can claim on the phone and the room.

I had a conversation with my accountant as I my room is also used for other purposes other than when I am working in it. Whilst you can claim back, it is worth taking into consideration that this can affect your capital gains if/when you come to sell the property.

Phone, I would claim a fixed percentage against line rental and the cost of the business related calls.

It may be worth suggesting to your husband that he utilises skype - its low cost and is free for skype to skype calls. It certainly makes things easier to manage if all business related calls are made from the skype number (and its cheaper than BT too!)