Self Employed - Claiming workspace percentage of home

lionsixty

Hello,

I'm just about to complete my first online self assessment.

I've totalled up all of my expenses (from the reciepts I've kept) and my income as per my invoices for the trading period.

Since I work from home for my self-employment I'd like to claim some of my utilities and expenses.

My workspace takes up 5% of my rented home but I'm not sure how to claim individual items, for example: I probably use far more electricity than 5% of the total I don't have any way of recording or measuring the actual usage - do you estimate or just go with floorspace percentage?

Does anyone here claim allowances for home usage, how you work it out if you do and what items do you claim for?

I'd also like to know if my list below is appropriate to claim (this is straight from brain to notepad, I've not actually put this down anywhere else):

• Rent (presume this could be a straight forward 5%)
• Council Tax (as above?)
• Water (as above?)
• Electric (as above?)
• Internet (mixed use, there is equipment I use solely for work
  constantly using it though, so I'd estimate 35%?)
• Mobile (mixed use. as most business calls are incomming, safe to say 20% of my incomming calls/text are business related - but does this mean I can claim 20% of the monthly rental?)
• Landline (used entirely for the internet connection, so 35% from internet estimate?)

Any help on my questions is appreciated, I do intend to use an accountant next year!!

PasturesNew

The figures I've found work out like this:

You use 5% of your house.
You use it for 8 hours/day, 5 days/week, plus 2 hours at a weekend (because the maths is easy in this explanation) or 42 hours out of a total of 24x7 hours (168)

42/168 = 25% of the time

Relevant utility/bills are £1000 (not even going to attempt on your scenario which would be relevant)
Claim would be for 5% (floorspace) of 25% (time): 5% of £1000 is £50; 25% of £50 is £12.50.

So, that's how I do it. I'd enter £12.50 to offset against tax.

tyllwyd

There are some examples here
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/bimmanual/BIM47820.htm
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/bimmanual/BIM47825.htm

DS4215

I believe if you use your mobile for work, you can claim for the line rental and work related calls on your bill. So if line rental is £10 per month, and you spend 50p on work calls and £9.50 on personal calls, then you can claim £10.50 in that month.

The same for home phone and internet if you need them for work.