Tax return: debit interest allowable vs credit interest?

In message , Lobster writes

No.

Because HMR&C wont allow it.

Sorry to be bearer of bad news.

Think of it logically. You are taxed on your income so it is logical to tax your interest received.

You are only allowed to set interest paid against business income.

If you are paid to take someone for a journey in your car you should be taxed on your profit you make, ie. revenue less expenses such as petrol or mileage.

If you get a taxi to go to football you are not then able to deduct that from the profit you make from the above journey.

I believe it used to be the case that you could do this - when my father was young that is, a long time ago. This was then curtailed until only interest paid on the mortgage on your own house was tax-deductable and that has since been curtailed further in that it can only be deducted from the basic rate of tax.

Robert

But on a similar note, if you've got a mortgage there are plenty of "offset" accounts, where you offset your current account/savings account interest against your mortgage.

Then you pay nothing in tax (assuming your mortgage is greater than your current & savings account balances), since you don't actually get paid interest, you save interest on your mortgage.

It has since been whittled away to nothing. Mortgage interest tax relief was abolished in April 2000.

In message , Ronald Raygun writes

Except for those loans used for the purchase of life annuities which were offered by the lender prior to 6 April 2000.