Working at home

Pink_Flamingo

Hi

I am self-employed and work at home 5 days a week, 9 to 5 ish hours. What percentage of my rent, gas and electric can I reasonably claim as expenses? I live in a 3-bed flat and one bedroom is my study. I used an accountant for a while and he claimed 50% for me but I am worried that this is too high. I am now doing my own tax return Is 35% more reasonable?

Any advice would be very gratefully received!!

fengirl_2

The usual method is to use the percentage relating to the number of rooms in the house.So if you have 5 rooms (excl kitchen and bathroom) and use one for work, then you include 20% of your household running costs. 50% sounds like pushing your luck.

Katie-Kat-Kins

The HMRC guidence is quite helpful on this. There are various ways to work this out depending upon your circumstances, the crucial thing is to be able to justify it.

We worked out roughly what our bills come to over the year, divided it by three and claim that, rounded to a nice figure.

Worked on the basis that there are two of us in the house plus hubby's business. He uses one of the three bedrooms exclusively and uses additional space elsewhere (attic, understairs, second bedroom, under the bed etc) for storage as well as using the facilities of the kitchen and bathroom.

We don't claim separately for phone, broadband, energy etc it is all included in this one figure for ease. He works long hours often well into the night and we probably wouldn't really bother with home phone and broadband if it wasn't for the business. The "office space" he has is fully kitted out, the business didn't buy any of the things in there except the computer and printer.

Pink_Flamingo

That's really helpful! Thanks very much for your time and reply!