Tax, CIS and Making Tax Digital for self-employed bricklayers

When Making Tax Digital starts for bricklayers

It depends on your qualifying income, not your trade. Qualifying income is the total of self-employment and property income before expenses (turnover), not profit.

Once you’re in, you send HMRC a quarterly update by 7 August, 7 November, 7 February and 7 May, then a tax return after the year ends. MTD for Income Tax does not change how tax is paid or the payment due dates.

Check your own start date and what to sort first. It’s free and takes a minute.

CIS for bricklayers

Building, altering, extending and repairing buildings and walls is construction work, so nearly all bricklaying is inside CIS when a contractor pays you. That includes work on existing property, such as repairing or rebuilding brickwork. On labour-only work the deduction is taken from your whole bill. If you buy the bricks, sand or cement, or hire a mixer or saw from someone else, show them on the invoice so the deduction is worked out on your labour alone. A homeowner paying you for work on their own home does not deduct anything.

When CIS applies, a contractor deducts 20% if you’re registered for CIS, 30% if you’re not, and nothing if you have gross payment status. To work out a CIS deduction, the contractor starts with the gross invoice and takes away what the subcontractor paid for VAT, consumable stores, fuel (except for travelling), plant hire, manufacturing or prefabricating materials, and materials; the CIS rate is then deducted from the amount left.

Before you join Making Tax Digital, over-deducted CIS is claimed back through your Self Assessment tax return. Once you are in Making Tax Digital, HMRC adds your CIS deductions to your tax return, and any refund is requested separately through HMRC online services. Either way, the sooner after 5 April the return is filed, the sooner HMRC can repay you.

Estimate your CIS refund

Free, and it runs in your browser: add your van or mileage, tools and phone, for 2025-26 and 2026-27.

Costs bricklayers usually claim

The test for every cost is whether it was for your business. If something is partly personal, only the business part counts.

Your van, tools and kit

Travel matters more for bricklayers than most trades, because the leading court case on it was about one. In Horton v Young, a bricklayer who kept his tools at home and worked at sites for a few weeks each could claim travel between home and those sites. HMRC still allows it where home is your base and each site is temporary. If you spend months at one site, it starts to look like commuting, so log every site with its dates and miles. The van carries your tools, mixer and stands, and counts as business equipment.

From 2024-25 the cash basis is the default for sole traders and partnerships without corporate partners, with no turnover limit; traditional (accruals) accounting is an opt-out. Under the cash basis, the cost of equipment bought to keep and use in the business, such as machinery, computers and vans, is claimed as a normal allowable expense rather than a capital allowance. Cars are different: they go through capital allowances.

Simplified expenses for cars and goods vehicles (vans) from 6 April 2026: 55p a mile for the first 10,000 business miles, then 25p; motorcycles 24p. Once used for a vehicle you must keep using it for that vehicle, and it cannot be used for a vehicle already claimed through capital allowances.