For Individuals · Builders & Trades
Direct answer: if you're a self-employed subcontractor working under the Construction Industry Scheme (CIS), there's a good chance you're owed a tax refund — FinPilot checks and files your return properly, on a fixed fee.
Contractors deduct 20% (or 30% if you're not registered with HMRC) from your payments before you see them, regardless of your actual expenses. Once tools, protective equipment, van costs or mileage, insurance and materials are properly claimed, the tax actually owed is often lower than what's already been deducted — meaning a refund once your return is filed. Your CIS deduction statements from each contractor are the record of what's already been paid on your behalf, in the same way a payslip or dividend voucher would be.
FinPilot is based in Rugby, on Houlton — one of the region's largest new-build developments, still being built out in phases by multiple housebuilders. That means genuine, everyday proximity to the self-employed trades who build developments this size: groundworkers, bricklayers, electricians, plumbers and plasterers working site by site across Rugby, Coventry, Northampton and Warwickshire.
Many self-employed CIS subcontractors are, because contractors deduct 20% (or 30% if not registered) from payments regardless of your actual allowable expenses — once tools, mileage, PPE and other costs are properly claimed, the deduction is often more than the tax actually owed, and the difference is refunded after your self assessment return is filed.
CIS requires contractors to deduct tax at source from payments to most self-employed construction subcontractors and pass it to HMRC — your CIS deduction statements from each contractor are the record of what's already been paid on your behalf.
Typically tools and equipment, protective clothing (PPE), van costs or mileage, public liability insurance, and materials you've bought yourself — a fairly standard list across most trades.
This is built around individual self-employed subcontractors — if you run a firm that employs others or takes on your own subcontractors, that's a different, business-shaped conversation with its own monthly CIS return obligations, worth discussing separately.
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