Specialist accountants for UK
photography & production
companies

Bought a fresh medium-format body and lens set late in the financial year. Without a year-end review, the kit was sitting in fixed assets depreciating slowly instead of being claimed under AIA in the year of purchase – worth roughly £20k in tax over two years.

Move the purchase into AIA in year of acquisition (within the £1m annual cap), tidy the asset register so each lens is logged with serial and shoot allocation, and add a quarterly capex review so future kit decisions are made with the tax position visible.

Crew payments were running through ad-hoc invoices. One DP started doing four shoots a quarter, no contract refresh, and on review the engagement looked closer to inside-IR35 than the original determination supported.

Self-billing process for repeat freelancers, fresh status determinations on every engagement (with a rule to retest at four engagements per quarter), and a tightened PAYE process for any role that does tip inside.

Capex of ~£140k planned across two financial years. Without phasing, the AIA in year one would absorb most of it but year two would land on the main pool at 18% writing-down allowance – slower relief on the bigger spend.

Phase purchases so as much as possible lands inside the £1m AIA each year, claim Special Rate Pool where qualifying (e.g. integral features), and review whether any of the colour-management R&D work qualifies under the merged scheme (20% credit on qualifying spend).