Available for comment on UK sole-trader tax, MTD ITSA, and self-employed record-keeping.

Founder bio

Remus Pantea is the founder of PocketReceipt — a receipt scanner and expense tracker for UK sole traders, free on iOS and Android. He built it in 2026 out of personal frustration: the existing tools (Dext, Hubdoc, AutoEntry) are priced and designed for accountants billing per client, not for the self-employed person doing their own books at the kitchen table.

PocketReceipt scans receipts in seconds, categorises them against HMRC's standard expense types, tracks mileage at AMAP rates, and produces Self Assessment-ready exports. A separate Accountant Dashboard handles the practitioner side for firms managing multiple sole-trader clients.

The whole operation is one person, working and living in the UK. No investors, no venture capital, no PR agency. Remus is available for journalist comment on MTD ITSA, sole-trader tax, mileage, VAT thresholds, and self-employed record-keeping.

Available for comment on

Pre-cleared quotes (use as-is or paraphrase)

Each of these is approved for direct quotation, attributed to Remus Pantea, Founder of PocketReceipt. Edit lightly to fit house style; flag back if you want a custom quote on a specific angle.

MTD ITSA "HMRC's soft-landing year on missed quarterly updates is genuinely useful — it gives sole traders one tax year to bed in the workflow without a £200 fine on day one. But it does not cover late-payment penalties, and it does not cover the annual final declaration. The most expensive year-1 mistake will be assuming the soft landing covers all of MTD ITSA. It only covers the quarterly cadence."

More from PocketReceipt: MTD ITSA Penalty Rules Year 1 · MTD Quarterly Checklist · MTD Quarterly Forecaster

Sole trader vs Ltd "Most online sole-trader-vs-Limited-company calculators stop at gross take-home. The honest answer at typical UK profit levels is more nuanced — once you factor in £800–£1,500 of annual accountancy fees for a Ltd, the genuine break-even moves up to roughly £40,000 of taxable profit, and even higher if you need every penny personally each year rather than retaining it in the company."

More from PocketReceipt: Sole Trader vs Ltd Calculator

VAT "The Limited Cost Trader rule quietly catches most pure-service consultants who voluntarily register for VAT. If your goods spend is under 2% of turnover or under £1,000 a year, HMRC forces you to a 16.5% Flat Rate — which almost always costs more than standard VAT. Most freelancers who think they're getting a deal from FRS aren't running the numbers."

More from PocketReceipt: VAT Threshold + Flat Rate Scheme Calculator

Mileage "HMRC's 45p mileage rate hasn't changed since 2012. For most sole traders driving fuel-efficient cars under 10,000 business miles a year, that 45p is generous against actual fuel-plus-insurance-plus-depreciation cost — so simplified mileage usually beats actual costs. Where it flips is high-cost vehicles, expensive insurance, or drivers above 10,000 miles where the rate halves to 25p."

More from PocketReceipt: HMRC Mileage Calculator · HMRC Mileage Rates 2026/27

Trading allowance "The £1,000 trading allowance is genuinely good news for low-volume side income — under £1,000 gross and you don't even need to register. But the trap is that it's gross income, not net. Sell £1,500 of crafts with £600 of materials cost, and your gross is £1,500, not £900. You're over the threshold and you must register for Self Assessment by 5 October."

More from PocketReceipt: The £1,000 Trading Allowance

Receipts & HMRC "The single biggest expense category sole traders lose to disorganisation is the small stuff — a £12 fitting, a £6 box of mailers, a £40 fuel receipt that goes through the wash. Across a tax year that adds up to hundreds of pounds of expense that should have reduced their taxable profit but didn't, because the receipt wasn't there at year-end."

More from PocketReceipt: Every Expense a UK Sole Trader Can Claim

Working from home "HMRC's flat-rate working-from-home allowance is genuinely simple — £10 to £26 a month depending on hours — but most full-time freelancers leave money on the table by using it. Apportioning real utility bills usually wins once you're working from home above 100 hours a month. The trap nobody talks about: claiming a room as exclusively for business can knock proportional Capital Gains Tax relief off the table when you eventually sell. Use non-exclusive apportioning instead and keep both reliefs."

More from PocketReceipt: Simplified Expenses vs Actual Costs

Self Assessment registration "Most newly self-employed people know the 31 January filing deadline. Almost none know that registering for Self Assessment has its own separate deadline — 5 October following the tax year you started trading. Miss that and you can get a failure-to-notify penalty before you've even filed your first return. It catches nearly every late starter, especially side-hustlers who only realised they needed to register once their gross income crept past £1,000."

More from PocketReceipt: Self Assessment & MTD Deadlines · The £1,000 Trading Allowance

Income tax / £100k taper "Profit between £100,000 and £125,140 is taxed at an effective 60% for most sole traders — not the 40% headline rate that most people would assume. The Personal Allowance tapers away at £1 lost per £2 over £100,000, so every extra £1,000 of profit in that band costs you £600 in combined tax and allowance loss. The cleanest way out of that band is usually a pension contribution that drops your adjusted net income back below £100,000 — and even your accountant might forget to mention it."

More from PocketReceipt: Sole Trader Tax Calculator

CIS "If you're a CIS subcontractor seeing 30% deducted from your invoices instead of 20%, that's a paperwork problem, not a permanent rate. It usually means you haven't registered with HMRC for CIS, or your contractor hasn't verified you with HMRC's online service. Both are fixable in days. The 10% gap on a £30,000 trading year is £3,000 of your own cash sitting with HMRC waiting for your Self Assessment refund — money you needed for your own bills six months earlier."

More from PocketReceipt: CIS Deduction Calculator · PocketReceipt for Construction

Honesty section — what I'm not

Topics PocketReceipt has published depth on

• HMRC Mileage Rates 2026/27
• Self Assessment & MTD Deadlines 2026/27
• Every Expense a UK Sole Trader Can Claim in 2026/27
• How Much Tax Do I Pay as a UK Sole Trader?
• Making Tax Digital for Sole Traders
• The £1,000 Trading Allowance
• MTD ITSA Penalty Rules Year 1
• MTD ITSA Quarterly Checklist
• Simplified Expenses vs Actual Costs
• Receipt Scanner vs Accounting Software