Can I become twitch streamer to pay for things as a business expense?

rubberduck said:
By the way, there are actually quite strict rules on twitch regarding showing off cleavage and chests etc. so clothes would be a legit business expense. Also, I have a mate who knows about accounting and he reckons you only get investigated if you are cheating the gov out of more money than the cost of the investigation. In my case I'd just be looking to cheat out up to £1000 so pretty small beer for tax inspector and vat man. I'd basically sail under the radar I reckon.
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This absolutely has to be a troll thread...

You realise you can only claim a % of these 'utilities' as tax deductible.

You realise tax deductible for a Ltd company just means you save 20% through lack of tax.

You won't be making any money but are going to put your own capital into the business account to then 'pay yourself' and 'pay your expenses.' So basically you have already paid income tax or whatever on your 'invested capital' ??

You realise you need to keep track of your account, keep a balance sheet and submit your own accounts to HMRC, all of which is time consuming and not at all worth saving a few quid on a broadband bill.

No clothes are not a legit tax deductible expense unless it's like PPE.

No you can't expense a pet, sorry... ''mascot''
 
Important to note, if you pay yourself below minimum wage while streaming you can take yourself to court to get compensation from yourself, genius :D
 
Lima said:
This absolutely has to be a troll thread...

You realise you can only claim a % of these 'utilities' as tax deductible.

You realise tax deductible for a Ltd company just means you save 20% through lack of tax.

You won't be making any money but are going to put your own capital into the business account to then 'pay yourself' and 'pay your expenses.' So basically you have already paid income tax or whatever on your 'invested capital' ??

You realise you need to keep track of your account, keep a balance sheet and submit your own accounts to HMRC, all of which is time consuming and not at all worth saving a few quid on a broadband bill.

No clothes are not a legit tax deductible expense unless it's like PPE.

No you can't expense a pet, sorry... ''mascot''
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I agree with the tone of what you are saying of course. The OP is attention seeking or odd, or both. There are circumstances where a pet could be allowable. My dad was inspected and was allowed to continue to claim his dogs against the business. His argument was that he had a lot of sensitive data in his home office and that yappy dogs were a good deterrent. That doesn't change though how appalling the whole OP's idea is. Shall we all pay fair taxes so that you can get away with a poorly thought out and frankly pitifully profitless scam OP?
 
Well I figured that there are almost 5 million businesses in the UK so it can't be that hard to get set up and running. You can learn almost anything from Google these days and there are plenty of how to guides on the gov.uk website. My accounts will be little more than a few lines in an Excel file so very easy to do. Awesome! I can claim my office licence as a tax deductable business expense, thanks for the idea. The guy I employ to do some occasional landscape gardening has his own business and he isn't half as intellectually gifted as I am.
 
I'm going to start a bitcoin mining business and put all my electricity through as a business expense, can even plumb the water-cooling into the central heating so i won't need any gas. Win Win
 
Siliconslave said:
I'm going to start a bitcoin mining business and put all my electricity through as a business expense, can even plumb the water-cooling into the central heating so i won't need any gas. Win Win
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How is that any different from a genuine 'metals and minerals' mining company? And yes, as a highly qualified engineer I know that heat exchange is commonly used in the process industry to warm cold things and cool hot things. I even heard of a crematorium providing heat to warm a local swimming pool!!
 
Vonhelmet said:
Not a chance. As you have no serious expectation or intention of making a profit you are not carrying on a trade.

Source: I’m a chartered tax advisor.
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As someone reads stuff on the internet and remembers it with varying inaccuracies, I also was going to say this. I remember reading some case history and retrospectively the person finds out they cannot be self employed because of this profit issue, so their plans are ruined and they are even poorer then before sadly. Tax man only gives back money he robbed previously, sometimes.
They are wise to anything like this because theres a million who could try it on otherwise.

First you pay a lot of tax then you maybe can come up with some smart plan, theres no claiming back something on nothing.
 
Lima said:
This absolutely has to be a troll thread...
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Or maybe just some silly fun. rubberduck has started a few daft idea threads and the challenge is to come up with extensions to the idea that are even dafter.

No clothes are not a legit tax deductible expense unless it's like PPE.
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You can claim maintainance of clothes as a legit tax deductible expense if those clothes are a uniform for work. Doing so adds £80 a year to your tax allowance, saving you a whole £16 a year in tax. IIRC. I know it was a trivial amount.
 
@rubberduck

It's occurred to me that you mention that this sham business will not make any money. You are going to put your own money into the business to pay yourself a salary and bills.

You realise you need to pay the exact same amount you would if you didn't use a scam business? If your phone bill is £50 out of your account it will still be £50 out of a business account. You've already paid income tax on the money you have 'invested' in the business. All you are doing is paying some bills out of a different bank account..... :confused:

Edit - unless you are going to just try and claim relief/ get a rebate by lying on a self assessment form?
 
Angilion said:
You can claim maintainance of clothes as a legit tax deductible expense if those clothes are a uniform for work. Doing so adds £80 a year to your tax allowance, saving you a whole £16 a year in tax. IIRC. I know it was a trivial amount.
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Yea I appreciate that. I didn't mean quite so black and white. I was just trying to hit home that he won't be able to just save 20% on his next pair of trainers or Y-fronts... even if it is his 'gaming-wear' lol
 
"Also, I have a mate who knows about accounting and he reckons you only get investigated if you are cheating the gov out of more money than the cost of the investigation. In my case I'd just be looking to cheat out up to £1000 so pretty small beer for tax inspector and vat man. I'd basically sail under the radar I reckon."
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I think you're over estimating the cost of an "investigation" - HMRC have some pretty sophisticated computer systems which pick up most of the small fry cases automatically. Then the "cost of investigation" would be printing a letter and mailing it to you.
Source: I used to work on the computer systems.
 
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new boy said:
I'd go one further

Technically, you will be working from home, so you should be able to write the cost of your house off as a business expense
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Genius. I work from home a few days a week, I'm putting my mortgage through the books as a business expense.

Sauce: HP
 
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