Claiming expenses and allowances on self assessment - Sole Trader and Fixed Term PAYE

Hi all. In need of a little advice. I'm currently self employed, and have been for about 4 years. I work in the television industry, and the vast majority of my work comes through self employment as a sole trader whereby I invoice and declare. However, for this particular tax year it has just so happened that I have been employed on 6 different productions through fixed term PAYE contracts (100% of earnings). My issue is, I'm still very much a freelancer, and incur various associated costs, particularly investments in camera equipment needed to carry out my work. For example, I have spend around £15,000 this year on equipment that I use and need for work, and am wondering how/ if I can claim this as an expense/ capital allowance etc etc, as the option isn't available to claim due to my earnings being taxed at source. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks Harry

Hi,

The PAYE contracts would be declared as employments, along with any tax deducted.  

You can claim expenses for buying tools that you require to do the job in question. If this kit was acquired to do the contract work, then this would be an expense, set against the employment income.  If aquired for use as a freelancer, this would be 'plant and machinery', which is a Capital Allowance you can use against the self employment income. You can see guidance here:

Claim tax relief for your job expenses

Claim capital allowances

Thank you.

Hi, Thanks so much for the response, sorry for my delay I've been out of the country working. So this is what I assumed, however, as I'm only declaring employments, and my self employed income is technically zero, I don't have the option to input any expenses as that section is omitted. Is this possible with only having had paye employments? Thanks, Harry

Hi,
You can still declare the self employment in order to claim actual expenses if more than £1000 to generate a loss to carry forward.
Thank you.