Money you spent getting your business ready before it started trading is usually claimable, but easily forgotten. We make sure your startup costs are captured and reduce your first tax bill.
Pre-Trading Expenses
Expenses incurred before you start trading, in the seven years before your first day, are treated for tax as if incurred on that first day, provided they would have been allowable had the business already started. That covers things like equipment, stock, research, marketing, professional fees, insurance and training bought while getting ready. Many new businesses forget these costs entirely.
Your Tax Help Accountants gathers your pre-trading costs, confirms which qualify, and includes them in your first accounts so they reduce your first year's tax. It is a simple, valuable step that new businesses routinely overlook, and we make sure nothing you spent getting ready goes unclaimed.
You can claim costs from up to seven years before you started trading, so equipment, stock and setup spending from well before your first sale usually still counts. New businesses often forget these, leaving money on the table in year one.
The Detail That Matters
Money you spent getting your business ready before it started trading is usually claimable, but easily forgotten. Costs from up to seven years before you began can be treated as incurred on your first day of trading, reducing your first tax bill.
Expenses incurred in the seven years before you start trading are treated for tax as if incurred on the first day, provided they would have been allowable had you already been trading, equipment, stock, research, marketing, professional fees, insurance and training.
These pre-trading costs are pooled and set against your first year's income, reducing the taxable profit and therefore the tax in your first year of trading.
Equipment and tools go through capital allowances (often 100% via the Annual Investment Allowance), while running-type costs are deducted directly. We treat each correctly to maximise the relief.
New businesses often simply forget the spending they did before their first sale. Because it can reach back seven years, the amounts add up, and capturing them is a simple, valuable step.
New businesses routinely forget the money they spent getting ready, equipment, stock, marketing, and miss the deduction entirely, when much of it was fully claimable against the first year's profit.
Key Figures
How We Help
We gather the costs you incurred getting ready to trade, equipment, stock, marketing, professional fees, and confirm which qualify.
Pre-trading costs from up to seven years before you started can be claimed, treated as incurred on your first day of trading. We include them all.
By capturing your setup spending, we reduce your first year's taxable profit and tax bill, so your startup investment counts.
All the forms, calculations and correspondence handled on your behalf, so you never have to decode HMRC's rules or sit on hold.
A clear fixed fee quoted after a free call, your position explained in plain English, and never a surprise bill.
We act quickly, and where earlier years are involved we put those right too, reclaiming refunds or minimising penalties.
New businesses routinely forget the money they spent getting ready, equipment, stock, research, marketing, and miss the deduction. Because it can go back seven years, the amounts add up. We make sure every pre-trading cost is claimed.
Recent Client Outcome
A new business owner had spent significantly on equipment, stock and marketing before their first sale, unaware those costs were claimable.
What we did. We gathered the qualifying pre-trading expenses from the months before they started, treated the equipment through the Annual Investment Allowance and the running costs as day-one deductions.
The outcome. Their first year's taxable profit, and tax bill, fell meaningfully, because their whole set-up investment was captured rather than lost.
Claiming the pre-trading spend, which reaches back seven years, made sure their start-up investment counted against their first tax bill.
Why People Come to Us
Questions Answered
Want us to handle this for you, end to end?
See our Self-Assessment Accountant →Free fifteen-minute call. Fixed quote within twenty-four hours. Your return filed, every expense claimed, your bill explained, and salon VAT, payroll and accounts handled if you own a salon. Same accountant, start to finish.
Or email info@yourtaxhelp.co.uk, we typically respond within two business hours.
📅 Free consultation calls available weekdays 1pm to 3pm and 7pm to 8pm. Pick a slot that suits you.