Hello, I am a recently self-employed UK catsitter who doesn’t stay overnight at owners’ houses, instead I do daily visits of 30-60 minutes each time and I sometimes travel by public transport to each house in the city I live (Portsmouth, Hampshire). I have got to do my tax return for the first time and I’m wondering if I can claim for my travel expenses that are incurred. I don’t drive so I’m reliant on my feet, bike or buses. I always believed that I couldn’t claim for my travel, so didn’t bother keeping my bus tickets, but another catsitter who drives claims for their mileage, so surely it’s the same thing? If anyone could shed any light, that’d be great. I’ve looked online but it all seems to relate to vehicle use rather than public transport. Many thanks.
THS sitters travel at their own expense and the sits are also unpaid so you don’t need to worry about claiming expenses.
This is not a forum for paid petsitters, it’s for members of THS. You’ll need to seek out a forum for sitters on platforms like Rover etc, or ask a tax advisor.
Deductable business expenses only apply against income they’re directly related to.
Given the nature of your question, you may want to consider using a tax professional to assist you in correctly filing your tax return.
Okay. Thank you for clarifying. I shan’t bother you again.
It’s an unusual question, have you tried asking an AI bot e.g. ChatGP, Gemini (Google)?
This is the wrong forum but I can give you some insight. I am not a CPA so it is highly suggested that you seek a consult with one. If you have a business license in the US you can have write-offs. If you only have one car and you use it for personal use like grocery shopping, going to social events, etc then you must keep a log the miles you used for your pet sitting business and gas cost for those miles. Keep good records of dates of those sits and miles. Now retired from my 30 year seminar and consulting business, I set up as a corporation and my CPA said not to write of the miles I used the car to drive hours to the different cities as it was a red flag for an audit. Since I used the car personally as well. I made a lot from that business per year so the little write off wasn’t going to do much for me. If you have a smaller business please have a consult with a CPA. Ask what else you can write off. If you get a tee shirt with the name of your business on it and wear them to pet sits then that becomes your uniform and may be able to write those off as well. Good luck with your business.
As others have said, this is not really the right place to ask. Having said that I’m also a self-employed catsitter in the UK so have some experience with self-assessment. You can claim your travel expenses but only if you don’t use your £1000 trading allowance. So if your expenses are less than £1000 it’s probably not worth it.
For the purposes of a tax return you would be able to claim travel expenses, as this is a legitimate cost you incur for your business, you really need to keep receipts etc for proof of the amount you have spent.
You could claim travel costs for THS from a tax point of view but be aware you would be opening yourself up to having to pay tax on the value of the accomodation you received.