Tax Allowances
The County officials then add all the assessed values of the property together in a county. Further they subtract the applicable deductions in order to determine the net assessed value of the county.
Having identified certain items as fixed assets the normal accounting practise is to use a technique called depreciation to write off the cost of the asset against profits over the expected life of that asset. The scale of the write off being a management decision as all depreciation calculations are ignored for tax purposes. Depreciation is entered on the self assessment tax return and subsequently deducted in an adjustment section.
Generally first year allowances can not be claimed on vehicles except if that vehicle is deemed to be a commercial vehicle. The inland revenue website contains a list of vehicles it considers to be vans and commercial vehicles and first year allowances can be claimed. Cars and commercial vehicles not on the approved list are not subject to a first year allowance except new vehicles with low CO2 emissions below 120gm per km driven.
A fixed asset is typically a piece of kit purchased by a business that will be used by that business to generate a profit over a period of time, perhaps more than one year, as opposed to an item that is consumed within the financial year. Items in the category of fixed assets may be plant and machinery, fixtures and fittings, computers and vehicles.
The first step towards claiming capital allowances is to understand that not all purchases which may have been entered into the accounts are treated the same for tax purposes. 100% of the purchase price of the majority of items is deducted from income to produce a net taxable profit. Purchases of certain items where that item is not consumed by the business in a single year but may be used by the business in both the current year and future years are not expensed in the year of purchase but classified as fixed assets.
It’s really too bad it takes an IRS tax lien attorney to convince the IRS to be reasonable. But that’s exactly what has to be accomplished. You don’t have to accept a lien blindly, because there are options available.