Work from home but refused work expenses allowance

Cook_County

You will need to demonstrate that your contract of employment requires mandatory home working. Hoddie above goes on good detail.

You have not said whether or not the paperwork supports this.

tuux1598g

Hoddie wrote:

To claim relief you must satisfy all the following conditions:

1. The duties performed at home are 'substantive duties' (ie all/part of the central duties of the employment.
2. Those duties cannot be performed without the use of appropriate facilities.
3. No such facilities are available on the employer's premises (or the nature of the job is that you must be based far away from the employer).
4. At no time (before or after signing any contract) have you had the choice of working at the employer's premises or at home.

You just described my job

Hoddie wrote:

You cannot claim for the following:

1. Council tax/rates.
2. Rent.
3. Water rates.
4. Mortgage (or similar).
5. Household insurance.

I understand this and think that this is entirely fair, they do have to draw the line somewhere and these are typical expenses that you HAVE to pay regardless. However the items claimed for (phone line and internet) are not mandantory payments and are there to carry out my job. Seems I've started a bit of a debate here and I really appreciate everybodies comments, I understand where everyone is coming from on this - it is a bit of a grey area to say the least.

Cook_County wrote:

You will need to demonstrate that your contract of employment requires mandatory home working. Hoddie above goes on good detail.

You have not said whether or not the paperwork supports this.

The contract does specifically state that my position will be working from my home, this is stated in the section of my contract headed 'Place of work':

Your normal place of work will be your home address.

There is no option to work from company premises, my job is entirely work-from-home - this is why I was attempting to claim tax relief on the expenses, my contract states that I'm responsible for the expenses which I'm quite happy with (obviously as I accepted the contract), however I do believe the HMRC's work expenses covers these costs by their own definition of a work expense.


Cheers

Hoddie_2

If what you say is true, about there being no option to work at the employer's premises (rather than it being a choice), then you can claim the relief. If they have rejected your claim you should appeal.

Jet

Hoddie wrote:

If you do satisfy the conditions mentioned above, you can claim relief on a flat £2/week. If you wish to claim more then you'd be required to keep records and be able to demonstrate that your claim is reasonable.

I do a very minimal amount of self employed work from home - doing book keeping. I probably do on average 6 or 7 hours a month. Can I still claim the flat £2 a week?

sarahlouise210

...........of course there is an element of personal use with your internet connection:rolleyes: !! Hoddies post is spot on - did you provide your contract of employment when you submitted your claim? If not re-submit your claim and enclose a copy of your contract. Working at HMRC myself....it is very unusual to find someone who does not have a home phone!! Perhaps you could supply details of when you had the line connected so that it will tie in with when you started the job?

Hoddie_2

Jet wrote:

I do a very minimal amount of self employed work from home - doing book keeping. I probably do on average 6 or 7 hours a month. Can I still claim the flat £2 a week?

The rules are different if you're self-employed, there is no set deduction in law. You can claim part of the rent, insurance, etc, in proportion to the amount of your home that is set aside for purely business use. It is common for people to claim relief on 1/6th of household expenses if they had 1 of 6 rooms set aside for purely business use, 1/5th if 1 of 5 rooms, etc. When adding up the number of rooms in your house you would normally discount the bathroom and any hallways (some discount the kitchen also).

However, it's not really as clear cut as that. There is the possibility that the part of the property you 'set aside for business use' would be subject to business rates and, if applicable, capital gains tax. You should really seek guidance from HM Revenue & Customs before deciding whether to claim or not.

interest_Ted

On the question of telephone line rental.

I was employed for many years by a reputable large company, and was able to have my basic line rental paid without any tax liability. Here is how it worked. My employer explained to the Inland revenue the reasons that I (and other employees of similar status) were required to have a telephone (for example - so that they could be contacted at any time in case of emergency). The Inland Revenue agreed that the expense of the line rental could be reclaimed by the employee from the employer as an expense without tax liability. Similar to normal travel expenses etc.

There was never any ability to claim the money from the Inland Revenue by the employee. I am pretty sure that we did it as outlined above for this very reason.

Although this continued into the mobile phone era, it did not apply to mobile phones. These were purchased by the company and provided to those employees who the company decided should have them.

So it really does boil down to whether the employer really does want the employee to have the phone or not. If the employer decides to give the employee the cost of the line rental, then it is my understanding that unless there is an agreement between the employer and HMRC, the money given to the employee will be subject to tax. If the employer wants the employee to have a mobile fone, then they can, AFAIK, provide it free of charge, on teh basis that it is only used for business use.

Ted

tuux1598g

sarahlouise210 wrote:

...........of course there is an element of personal use with your internet connection:rolleyes: !! Hoddies post is spot on - did you provide your contract of employment when you submitted your claim? If not re-submit your claim and enclose a copy of your contract.

Yup, I'd guess around 5 hours personal use compared with the 20 hours business use (working part-time) - does this mean that I should simply claim relief for 4/5ths of the cost of the internet (£20/month)? I didn't supply my contract as the form did not request any proof of eligibility and the local tax office said that all that was required was the completed form.

Working at HMRC myself....it is very unusual to find someone who does not have a home phone!! Perhaps you could supply details of when you had the line connected so that it will tie in with when you started the job?

The phone line is probably a strange one to argue here, I admit it is probably unusual not to have a home phone for personal use, but I think for the HMRC to take that view would be old-fashioned (through lack of a better term) of them as many people now use just mobiles.

But of course to have the internet, a phone line is required.. so I suppose again the above percentage of personal/business internet use would also apply to the phone? I really wouldn't have it otherwise, I use my mobile for all personal calls as I have free minutes on my contract and know quite a few people that do the same. If not for work requiring the landline I would simply use VOIP (which is free) - so the phone line is purely a work-related cost in my circumstances.

Unfortunately my phone line installation and work start-date won't match as I moved house whilst already working and so had the phone line and internet connected before I could move in (obviously).

I think I should maybe go back to the local tax office and ask to talk to somebody about it all with a copy of invoices and contract in hand

Hoddie_2

They won't allow the line rental - in my experience they never have. This really should be paid by your employer.