Running a Business from Home

United Kingdom is known for its creative and innovative ideas to encourage entrepreneurship and small sized business, however it also maintain its stand when it comes to regulation and policies. Most of the small sized companies start their business from home because firstly it saves lot of money and secondly it gives them the time and space needed to test and explore the market.

However, it is not as simple as it sounds to be. Before you start working from home, there are certain mandatory permissions that you need to take before starting the operations, namely permissions from your landlord or mortgage provider, from local planning office in case you are planning to make some alterations or modifications in your home or from the local council in case you want either to advertise from your home or if you are going to run the business that needs a license or if your business nature is such that lot of customer would be visiting your workplace or home. Apart from mandatory permissions, you also have to cater for the insurance i.e. you need to have an insurance cover for your business even if you have home insurance because later is not qualified to cover the business.

While you run the business from home, UK government allows you to have avail certain tax allowances and also you can include the costs of your business in your Self-Assessment Tax Return. Running your business from home does not exempt you from taking care of its health and safety and as a matter of fact you need to be more watchful about the same especially if your business is complex or involves high-risk.

Apart from the mandatory permissions, health and safety measurements, tax allowances, you also need to calculate the business rates that you have to pay on the part of the property where you are running the business.

Report this Page