Tax, CIS and Making Tax Digital for self-employed painters and decorators

When Making Tax Digital starts for painters and decorators

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 painters and decorators

Painting or decorating the inside or outside of any building is covered by CIS, whether it is new or a repaint. That includes varnishing, decorative paintwork such as gold leaf on a banister, and protective coatings sprayed onto a surface. Wholly artistic work, such as a mural, and signwriting are excluded by law. Who pays decides whether anything is deducted: a homeowner is not a contractor, and nor is a shop or office outside construction unless its building spend makes it a deemed contractor.

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 painters and decorators 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

Decorating runs on small kit and consumables that are bought and replaced all year, so the habit that matters is keeping every trade-counter receipt and noting which job it went on. Ladders, towers and sprayers you keep are business equipment; a tower you hire for one job is a cost of that job, and on a CIS job hired kit from another firm can be shown with your materials. Most decorators drive from home to a different house or site every few days, which HMRC usually treats as business travel. Your van is business equipment too.

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.