# Starting mobile mechanic business



## fraz101 (Feb 28, 2012)

I'm thinking of starting a mobile mechanics business.

I'm fully qualified etc and not sure how it works regarding tax etc.

I have placed a small local ad on gumtree offering my services but have a few questions regarding how it works with regarding tax etc.

I'm not expecting the work to come flooding in straight away so my questions are as follows

1) Do i have to register as self employed straight away regardless of the amount of work i do? It's probably only going to be the odd job here and there,like i said i don't expect to be doing 10 jobs a week?

2) If i don't how much money can i earn without having to pay tax?

3) If i do a job for someone and they ask for a receipt can i just write one out with the job description and price i charge?

Any advice or links are most welcome.

Cheers

Fraser


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## Nico1970 (May 15, 2014)

fraz101 said:


> I'm thinking of starting a mobile mechanics business.
> 
> I'm fully qualified etc and not sure how it works regarding tax etc.
> 
> ...


1) If you are serious about paddling your own canoe, then it is in your interest to be up front with the tax man in terms of being self-employed. In theory, assuming you will be able to keep decent records of your income / expenses etc, you will benefit by paying less tax than an equivalent PAYE.

If you are continuing with a normal PAYE job and just doing this as essentially a hobby, then only you can decide about declaring the additional income to the tax man under Self Assessment (SA). It must be said, however, to falsify SA returns is a very serious offence as I am sure you are aware, of course...

2) One of the benefits of being self-employed is that you can offset a number of allowances against the income that you are permitted to earn before paying any tax, thus enabling you to minimise your tax liability. Remember, tax avoidance is perfectly legal, tax evasion is NOT. You will recall the recent stories of the big multinationals paying miniscule amounts of tax on billions of pounds of revenue.

3) Whilst the issuance of a receipt is not a legal requirement to show that a contract existed and was performed, it is very good practice for a number of reasons. For a start (from the seller's point of view), it is a record that you provided a service. It is also used as a record of expenses too. Best thing to do is get yourself a serially numbered triplicate book that you can write the date, customer, description, value etc on. Give one copy to the customer, save one to file and keep one in the book for official purposes (tax etc).

Note that you will also want to issue an Invoice too.

The HMRC website holds a wealth of information - here is a link to the Self-Employed section which is well worth a read.

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/selfemployed/index.shtml

It is also worth seeking professional advice (solicitor and/or accountant) who will be able to better advise for your specific needs and circumstances.

Good luck.


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## fraz101 (Feb 28, 2012)

Thanks for the reply.

As i say i'm not expecting lots of work,it's probably going to be more of a part time business.

I presume so long as i keep note of any income/jobs i do i am not doing anything illegal HMRC wise in the short term?


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## trv8 (Dec 30, 2007)

It's not the amount of work you get, it's all about the amount of money you earn from this work....whether part-time or full-time makes no difference.

Are you PAYE at the moment?


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## fraz101 (Feb 28, 2012)

Thanks for replies, called HMRC and got all the info i need.


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## mike13098 (Jan 21, 2012)

1. Need to declare the company after 3 months of trading


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## fraz101 (Feb 28, 2012)

Gheezer said:


> Just a thought, do you see many mobile mechanics out and about? No? There is a reason for this. Basically all the full time mechanics are working weekends making tax free beer tokens because no one wants to pay full price. I know I did!
> 
> Lying on a street changing a clutch on a Capri with hailstones running down the road. Aaarh, the good old days!


I did too


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