Claiming back utilities costs

TipsyTaylor · 23 February 2018 at 1:09PM

Hello everyone,
I am due to start working for an American company, who will be me my salary as a gross fee. It is my responsibility to then save and pay the tax and national insurance contributions. I will be working from home and wanted to know what I am able to claim back against my tax, in terms of household bills?
I will be employed by the company, not working as self-employed.
Thanks as always,
Tipsy

unforeseen · 23 February 2018 at 1:34PM

TipsyTaylor wrote: »

Hello everyone,
I am due to start working for an American company, who will be me my salary as a gross fee. It is my responsibility to then save and pay the tax and national insurance contributions.

I will be employed by the company, not working as self-employed.

Are you really sure about that? The first statement contradicts that assumption.

Darksparkle · 23 February 2018 at 1:35PM

If you are employed by them then it would be up to them to deduct tax and Nic.

You'll need to ensure you employment status is correct before anything else.

pmlindyloo · 23 February 2018 at 1:43PM

This link will be useful for you:

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/gds/nic/work/embassy.htm

When you contact your local tax office then you can ask about allowances for utilities.

TipsyTaylor · 23 February 2018 at 4:41PM

Unforeseen and Darksparkle - There is no UK based office (I will be working from home) and, I believe, this is a fairly standard payment setup?
Penitent - I will ask the question in the cutting tax section of the site, just in case anyone can add to pmlindyloo's comment. Although, this is really what I was looking for, so thank you!

[Deleted User] · 23 February 2018 at 5:47PM

I'm moving this thread so you might get a better response OP to "cutting tax" forum

TheCyclingProgrammer · 23 February 2018 at 7:34PM

Darksparkle wrote: »

If you are employed by them then it would be up to them to deduct tax and Nic.

You'll need to ensure you employment status is correct before anything else.

It is possible for OP to be employed but also responsible for handling tax and NI deductions. If an employer has no U.K. presence then I believe the individual can set up their own PAYE scheme. I don’t think employer NIC are due in this case.

As far as working from home expenses, as you clearly have to work from home then I believe you can claim up to £4/week in tax relief without any evidence of additional costs, or the additional costs of any utilities like electricity and heating etc. if higher but you must keep evidence of how you calculated this. You cannot claim a proportion of any fixed costs.

00ec25 · 25 February 2018 at 1:36AM

precisely as cyclingprogrammer says

- with no UK base, perfectly "normal" for an employee to be accountable for operating own PAYE (income tax and NI) when working for an overseas company, set up a DPNI scheme
https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/paye-manual/paye20100

- as an employee you can claim £4 per week as an allowance for "working from home". In a brilliant bit of HMRC maths, the monthly rate is £18, so always claim the monthly rate, not the weekly rate. This flat rate expense is a no questions asked amount.

if you wish to claim more than £18/mth you will need to keep full records justifying the amount you claim

Also as mentioned, the principle is you can only claim additional costs caused by your working at home, you cannot apportion existing/fixed costs such as mortgage since that is not increased by you working at home

rules:
https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/employment-income-manual/eim32810

Claiming back utilities costs

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