CIS deductions and refunds, allowable tools and van expenses, NIC, the VAT reverse charge and MTD explained for self-employed repointing and masonry specialists.
Repointing a Victorian terrace is skilled, physical work: raking out perished mortar, matching a lime mix, and striking a clean weather-struck or bucket-handle joint that will stand another century. The tax side of a pointing specialist's business is shaped by two things most people outside construction never deal with, the Construction Industry Scheme and the VAT reverse charge, plus a kit and travel cost base that quietly adds up across a year of jobs.
This guide is written for the self-employed pointing and masonry specialist working mainly as a subcontractor for builders, with the occasional direct job for a homeowner. Get your CIS records, van costs and tool receipts captured as you go and the annual return, and the refund that usually comes with it, falls into place.
As a sole trader you pay Income Tax on your profit, which is everything you invoice (labour and any materials you recharge) minus your allowable expenses. For 2025/26 the personal allowance covers the first GBP 12,570, then you pay 20% to GBP 50,270, 40% to GBP 125,140 and 45% above. Between GBP 100,000 and GBP 125,140 the personal allowance tapers away, creating an effective 60% band, though few sole-trader pointers reach that.
Class 4 National Insurance is 6% on profit between GBP 12,570 and GBP 50,270 and 2% above that, with Class 2 NIC settled through Self Assessment. Scottish specialists pay Scottish Income Tax across six bands (19%, 20%, 21%, 42%, 45% and a 48% top rate) under an S-prefixed code; Welsh specialists carry a C-coded code at rates currently matching the rest of the UK. National Insurance stays UK-wide. CIS deductions are recorded against your code and account, so if your tax position looks off, check it with the tax code checker.
Most pointing specialists work as subcontractors for builders, restoration firms and main contractors, which puts you squarely inside the Construction Industry Scheme. Under CIS the contractor verifies you with HMRC and deducts tax from the labour part of your invoice before paying you: 20% if you are registered as a subcontractor, or 30% if you are not. Materials, plant hire and the VAT element are not subject to the deduction, only your labour.
Here is the key point for a pointing specialist: that 20% is taken off your gross labour with no regard for the GBP 12,570 you can earn tax-free or the thousands of pounds of van, tool and material costs you incur. So when you file, your real profit and the tax on it are almost always lower than the CIS already withheld, and HMRC repays the difference. A specialist with a van, grinders, scaffold hire and a season of lime and sand behind them frequently sees a four-figure refund. Always make sure contractors give you CIS payment and deduction statements, and keep every one. Our full CIS subcontractor guide explains the mechanics, and the CIS tax calculator estimates your likely refund before you file.
An expense is allowable when it is incurred wholly and exclusively for the business. For a pointing specialist the cost base is dominated by tools, the van, access equipment and consumable materials, not an office.
| Expense | What qualifies | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Hand tools | Pointing trowels, jointing irons, hawks, plugging and cold chisels, bolsters, brushes, finger trowels | Small tools deducted as you buy them |
| Power tools and discs | Angle grinders, raking-out rigs, mixers, dust extractors, drills | Larger items via the Annual Investment Allowance |
| Consumable materials | Lime, sand, cement, plasticiser, grinding and raking discs, sealant | Deductible; recharge to customer counts as income |
| Access equipment | Scaffold and tower hire, ladders, hop-ups, edge protection | Hire and purchase both allowable |
| Van costs | Fuel, insurance, tax, servicing, repairs, tyres, finance interest, or simplified mileage | Choose actual costs or 45p/25p mileage, not both |
| PPE and workwear | Goggles, FFP3 dust masks, gloves, knee pads, ear defenders, branded workwear, steel-toe boots | Protective gear is fully allowable |
| Insurance | Public liability, tools and plant cover, van insurance | Business cover only |
| Tickets and cards | CSCS card, IPAF/PASMA tower tickets, relevant training renewals | Renewals and updating tickets are allowable |
| Phone and admin | Business share of mobile, accountancy, bookkeeping, bank fees | Apportion private use out |
| Home as a base | HMRC flat-rate use-of-home for quoting, invoicing and ordering materials | Modest, but valid for a van-based trade |
The van is usually a pointing specialist's largest running cost. You can either claim a business proportion of all actual costs (fuel, insurance, road tax, servicing, repairs, tyres and finance interest), or use HMRC's simplified mileage rate of 45p a mile for the first 10,000 business miles and 25p thereafter. You cannot mix the two for the same vehicle in the same year, so work out which gives the bigger deduction. Travel between your home base and varying job sites is generally allowable for a van-based trade with no fixed workplace; an ordinary daily commute to a single regular site is not.
The private share of dual-use costs (your van for the school run, your phone for personal calls) must be stripped out. Everyday clothing is never allowable, even if you only wear it for work, though branded or genuinely protective gear is fine. Fines and parking penalties are not deductible. And the cost of buying a van outright is claimed through capital allowances, not as a one-off running cost.
Take a sole-trader specialist who invoices GBP 45,000 of labour across the year, all through CIS contractors, plus GBP 5,000 of materials recharged to customers, so GBP 50,000 gross. Contractors deducted 20% of the GBP 45,000 labour = GBP 9,000 under CIS.
Income: GBP 50,000 (labour GBP 45,000, recharged materials GBP 5,000)
Allowable expenses:
Taxable profit: GBP 50,000 minus GBP 16,400 = GBP 33,600
Income Tax: GBP 33,600 minus GBP 12,570 = GBP 21,030 at 20% = GBP 4,206
Class 4 NIC: GBP 21,030 at 6% = GBP 1,262
Tax and NIC due: GBP 5,468. But GBP 9,000 of CIS was already deducted, so HMRC repays GBP 3,532 (before any Class 2 and payments on account adjustments). Run your own figures through the sole trader tax calculator to see the picture before CIS, or the CIS calculator to estimate the refund.
For a pointing specialist the refund is real money you have already earned. Keep every CIS statement, every fuel receipt and every bag of lime on the books, and you reclaim what the 20% deduction overshot.
You must register for VAT once your taxable turnover exceeds GBP 90,000 in any rolling 12-month period. For a busy pointing specialist recharging materials on top of labour, that threshold is closer than it looks, so watch your rolling 12-month figure rather than your tax-year figure.
Once registered, construction work brings the domestic VAT reverse charge into play. For most repointing and masonry work supplied to another VAT-registered, CIS-registered contractor, you do not add VAT to the invoice. Instead you note that the reverse charge applies and the contractor accounts for the VAT to HMRC. You still charge VAT in the normal way to private homeowners and to customers who are not VAT and CIS registered. The reverse charge protects HMRC against missing-trader fraud in construction, and getting it wrong on a contractor invoice is a common error, so flag reverse-charge supplies clearly and keep them separate in your records.
Making Tax Digital for Income Tax Self Assessment replaces the annual return with quarterly digital submissions and a year-end finalisation. The thresholds are on gross income, before CIS deductions and before expenses:
This matters for pointing specialists because your gross turnover, the full value of your invoices, can be well over the threshold even though contractors have already withheld 20% and your bank only ever saw 80%. The test looks at the gross figure, so do not assume you are under just because the cash that arrived was lower. The upside is that recording each invoice, CIS statement and material purchase digitally as it happens makes your quarterly summaries, and your eventual refund claim, far tidier than a shoebox of receipts in January. Our guide to MTD for sole traders walks through the quarterly rhythm.
Losing CIS statements. Without the deduction statements you cannot prove the 20% already paid, and your refund claim weakens. Keep every one.
Forgetting recharged materials are income. If you buy lime and sand and bill the customer for them, that recharge is turnover; the purchase is the matching expense. Record both, not just the net.
Mixing van methods. You must pick actual costs or simplified mileage for a vehicle and stick with it for that vehicle; you cannot claim both in the same year.
Assuming you are below the MTD or VAT line. Both thresholds use gross turnover, not the net cash after CIS, so a specialist who feels small on paper can still be over.
Charging VAT on reverse-charge jobs. Adding VAT to a CIS-registered contractor's invoice when the reverse charge applies creates a mess for both sides. Mark reverse-charge supplies clearly.
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