Tax relief on computer purchase as salaried employee?

initium

I work as a senior engineer at a software firm, as a salaried employee on PAYE. My contract does not mention working from home (nor does it mention working from their premises), but I am allowed a great deal of flexibility in this regard as I work unusual hours due to my team being mostly based in the USA. I know very little about tax beyond PAYE..

What I would like to know is if there are any options open to me in terms of tax relief for purchasing a server to run at home. The specific function of this would be for testing changes or new ideas in a replica environment before taking them to my manager, and self education for new technology we are using, things which are all directly related to my career and my employment. The only option my employer can provide are older enterprise grade servers, which due to the combination of noise, heat, power consumption and size would be unsuitable for a small apartment (wife acceptance factor...).

I would be looking to spend around £1500 - £2000 in total. I've checked "Tax relief for employees - section 9" on gov.uk and while there do appear to be options for claiming tax relief for substantial equipment purchases I'm not confident that a server would qualify or that I'm eligible for tax relief in any regard as a salaried employee.

Is this something I could potentially do?

prowla

You might also want to consider whether your company would permit this, as you would be putting their product (and presumably data) on your personally owned computer.

SeniorSam

If it is something that would only benefit the company you work for, could not the company purchase the equipment?

PlutoinCapricorn

Ideally your employer should provide all the equipment that you need to do your job. Additional expenses are often paid from the petty cash on production of a receipt. Don't forget that even if you got tax relief you still would have to cover 80% of the cost yourself.

In your position, I would make a good business case for getting the server to the employer and let them pay for it if they decide it's in their interest to do so.

prowla

Incidentally, a laptop with VMware is quite a handy tool...

Nicola_Ed

Hi - if you look at "1. Overview" in the Tax relief for employees section you are referring to there is the following sentence:-


You may be able to claim tax relief if you have to use your own money for travel or things that you must buy for your job.

Generally HMRC's view is that if you must have something for your job your employer will pay for it. I think from your question the purchase you are referring to is optional so I do not think you would qualify.

initium

OK, thanks for the replies. The question about company software on a personal computer is valid, but it's mostly MSDN / VMware / FOSS stuff and not their IP. I do have VMware Workstation on my laptop but they don't make 12C laptops with 64GB+ of RAM unfortunately. Expensing it isn't an option, and unfortunately I didn't get the idea in before the budget was worked out, so the earliest my employer would be able to sort something out is the first few months of 2016.

This was something I was looking into purchasing anyway, but a few people said I should be able to get some form of tax relief on it if I purchased it myself and used it mainly for work.

Would it be bad if I submitted a claim to HMRC just to see what happened? Or would the have some sort of unwanted comeback?

comeandgo

Mainly for work is not good enough for HMRC. Items you can claim expenses for must be wholly for work with absolutey no private use.

BobQ

comeandgo wrote: »

Mainly for work is not good enough for HMRC. Items you can claim expenses for must be wholly for work with absolutey no private use.

Very true. Even if you are required to occasionally visit their office abroad you would not be able to claim for a passport as it has a personal use as well!

OP Do you work exclusively for the same firm? Or would self employment be an option.

initium

Alas I am a salaried full time employee for a single employer. I used to contract, and back then it was very easy to claim for equipment purchases via my umbrella firm (all things considered I only paid tax on 2 weeks a month, and multiple HMRC refunds on top of that). Going back to contracting isn't something I want to do now though, the stability of a long term salaried position is desired as my wife and I are looking to buy a house.

So, I think this is a dead end all things considered. Only option is to see how long I can back claim for the £4 a week one gets from working from home, but that would appear to be a lot of paperwork for very little gain and because I don't have a contract which specifically says I work from home untenable.

System

initium wrote: »

Only option is to see how long I can back claim for the £4 a week one gets from working from home, but that would appear to be a lot of paperwork for very little gain and because I don't have a contract which specifically says I work from home untenable.

I take it you have seen this from https://www.gov.uk/tax-relief-for-employees/working-at-home

If you work at home voluntarily and your employer doesn’t contribute to your expenses, you can’t claim tax relief for what you’ve spent.

Hope the taxman doesn't find out otherwise he'll want the money back