I do my husbands bookkeeping and was just wondering if there is any way I can claim for the time I spend doing his books even though I don't invoice him? Or should I be invoicing him even though the payment will just be transferring money back and forth from our bank accounts. Can he claim my time as an expense to his business?
Yes you can charge a reasonable amount for the work you do. If it amounts to a couple of hours a week, then invoice accordingly.
The important thing though is if you have another job or income that is in excess of your personal allowance, then you will have to pay tax. If you do not have another job etc you can earn up to £6745 this tax year without having to pay any tax ( though you will have to let hmrc know that you are self employed or your husnabd can run a paye scheme for you)
I believe even if you do bookkeeping for your husband only you have to be registered for Money Laundering through Inland Revenue or a registered body like ICB, IAB etc with practising certificate and Professional Indemnity Insurance.
If you are going to be doing it would be best to check with Inland Revenue because if you do bookkeeping and not registered then fines are high and not sure if it is true but someone told me once that severe cases of this is imprisonment.
I'm in the same situation doing my OHs admin and bookkeeping. What I can gather from the research I did is there are two options. You become self employed and invoice him or he operates PAYE for you.
If you choose the self employed option then you have to be registered for money laundering.
The PAYE option has the advantage that the money laundering regs don't apply although depending on your circumstances he may have to register with HMRC for your PAYE. I'm not sure of the rules on this, the PAYE for me is low enough that we haven't had to register and as a non-earning stay at home mum I don't have any other income.
You do have to be able to prove the payment is real so a transfer between bank accounts is advisable.
There is potentially a third option depending on your situation. If a sole trade business which it sounds like. You could become a partner and be allocated a profit share (as long as you participate in the running of the business). if you dont have any other employment and your profit share is fairly low then you will probably no suffer any tax or NIC each year allowing you and your husband to utalise your personal allowance.
There are various other implications to this and a initial half hour chat with your accountant would let your know if it is a worthwhile consideration. Obviously cant tell if it is or isnt from your original post but I have seen a few partnerships set up for this reason in the past.
PS: not proof reading so forgive any typos!
__________________
Forgive the typo's I generally do not proof read. Just lazy I guess!
