Working from home - deduct a hotdesk rental?

bigfoot371

Hello Wise MSE'ers,

I'm mulling over an interesting opportunity to change job. The company is 120 miles away from where I am living and they've accepted that I don't want to relocate (it's complicated, it's my ex-employer and the manager knows the full story and has accepted it).

They are willing to accept a working from home/remote working contract, expensing mileage/hotels if I go to the office for meetings / training.

The problem with WFH, is currently I am in a house share and am saving to buy. At least temporarily I'm looking at renting a hotdesk in Liverpool, which costs £10 p/d or £150 a month (with storage space included). This would be until I buy a place with space to dedicate to working, but if I like the setup I'd potentially use it longer.

I'm asking a high price for the job, and doubt they'd be willing to rent me a desk as well as pay travel expenses (If you don't ask, you don't get - and relocating is out of the question).

I like the idea of this, I get to live where I want to AND work in an office with social interaction in a city centre. Is there any way I could tax deduct the £150 P/M, I'd be into the 40% bracket in the job - so deductions are worthwhile. Would that be accepted when declaring the P11d? Could I claim it in a tax return?


All ideas welcome, if I progress with the offer I'd run it past the finance director who is very good with all this and would help me out in any way he can.


Thanks!

SailorSam

I'm not a taxman but i think you should be able to set it off against tax.
When you're self employed anything you have to pay out to do your job can be deducted first.
I was years driving a Cab around Liverpool, i deducted all the repairs and diesel.
I don't see a difference with a desk, if you need it to do the job.
Even if you worked from home you can claim expences.

Caz3121

I am not a taxman either but look at it in a different way
https://www.gov.uk/tax-relief-for-employees/working-at-home
the key will be whether you are 'working at home' voluntarily (in which case your employer can contribute £4 per week tax free) but you cannot claim anything else or whether they are requiring you to work from home, in which case the employer should pay
If the job is in X but you choose not to move I would have thought that was your choice so your cost
The alternative is to consider being self employed rather than an employee, you may lose some benefits (paid holiday etc) so would need to work out which works out best

Darksparkle

SailorSam wrote: »

I'm not a taxman but i think you should be able to set it off against tax.
When you're self employed anything you have to pay out to do your job can be deducted first.
I was years driving a Cab around Liverpool, i deducted all the repairs and diesel.
I don't see a difference with a desk, if you need it to do the job.
Even if you worked from home you can claim expences.

The difference would be employed compared to self employed.

To be honest, not something I've come across but I don't think you'd be able to claim it as an expense.

My understanding is that you can only claim tax relief on things you must spend. You can’t claim relief on things you’ve spent money on if your employer has already provided you with an alternative.

From what you have said, your employer has provided an alternative, work at the office or work from home.

TheCyclingProgrammer

Regarding the above post by Caz3121, you cannot simply "choose" to be self employed. If the nature of the working relationship doesn't pass the test for self employment then HMRC will not regard it as such.

Unfortunately I'm not sure you would be entitled to tax relief on any home working expenses, including the hiring of a hot desk facility, because you are working from home by choice. See example D here:

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/eimanual/EIM32790.htm

Likewise, because you are choosing not to relocate I'm afraid you may find any expenses that your employer pays for travelling to their offices are also not eligible for tax relief.

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/eimanual/EIM32370.htm

Of course, having your expenses reimbursed but having to pay tax on them is better than no reimbursement at all.

agrinnall

TheCyclingProgrammer wrote: »

Unfortunately I'm not sure you would be entitled to tax relief on any home working expenses, including the hiring of a hot desk facility, because you are working from home by choice. See example D here:

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/eimanual/EIM32790.htm

Likewise, because you are choosing not to relocate I'm afraid you may find any expenses that your employer pays for travelling to their offices are also not eligible for tax relief.

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/eimanual/EIM32370.htm

I'm not sure that I would agree with this. Surely the key is in what the OP has said: "They are willing to accept a working from home/remote working contract". To my mind that means that the normal place of work of the OP will be at home, and therefore any working from home and travel to other location expenses should be allowable (although I'd agree that the hot desk idea probably won't fly).

I'm in a similar situation myself but because my employer wouldn't change my working location my normal place of work is still the office, I accept that I can't claim for working from home and I pay for my own travel when I need to go to the office (thankfully infrequently as it's over 400 miles away).

bigfoot371

Because I'd be travelling internationally a significant amount of time, there is little point to relocate for a few days a month 'facetime' in the office. The director and VP I would work with mostly all live this end of the country and commute as needed (they WFH when they can, so can meet locally). I believe some people get mileage and hotels when they go in, but the director (who would be my boss) didn't negotiate this and has been lumbered with about 10 nights a month in a hotel at his cost.

As agrinnall reiterated, the contract would be basis being a home based worker over 100 miles away from the office, it would impractical to commute. I'm not considering moving back.

If I could be a contractor (and obviously charge more to cover pension, health incusrance, lack of security etc...) I would - but they've forced all previous contractors to employed.

Caz3121

If your contract is for 'home based' I am not sure how you can then hope to claim expenses incurred away from that location (hot desk in Liverpool) The employer has agreed to you using your home as a business location (and as such you could use the £4 per week calculation) and it is your choice not to work from there but to pay to rent space elsewhere so I would see this as a personal expense. If you are going to be away all bar a few days per month, is there no way you can work from home for those few days?

jimmo

agrinnall wrote: »

I'm not sure that I would agree with this

I would. In tax terms the problem here is not that work is 120 miles from home, it is that home is 120 miles from work and where the OP lives is personal choice.
Unfortunately, where TheCyclingProgrammer refers to example D I can only see examples 1 to 11 but I think its worth reading all of them.
It seems very likely that the employer has office facilities available at their base and there is nothing, so far, to suggest that the nature of the job dictates that the OP has to live where he lives.
Therefore the OP will work from home (or hotdesk) by choice, not necessity.
Similarly the fact that the employer is willing to accept a home working arrangement strongly points to personal choice of the employee rather than the employer, or the job, dictating that the employee must work at home. It is, of course quite feasible for the contract of employment to be drawn up in such a way that it obliges the employee to provide his own office accommodation but HMRC would look through the contract to see whether that requirement was a practical reality of the job or something drawn up to reflect the personal choice of the employee.

buglawton

If you accept a standard employee contract and PAYE tax I think you might as well give up on the idea of claiming tax relief on the rented hot desk. Bear in mind that many long suffering 40% tax rate folks pay £150 and a lot more more on motoring costs or how about £5k/annum for a typical commute from the suburbs into London? Neither of which stand any chance of being tax deductible.

antrobus

jimmo wrote: »

I would. In tax terms the problem here is not that work is 120 miles from home, it is that home is 120 miles from work and where the OP lives is personal choice....

I think you might be right.:)

EIM32370 as linked above is pretty clear; "The case law discussed in the following pages demonstrates that the expenses of travelling from home to another workplace do not qualify for relief under Section 337 unless the location of the employee’s home is itself dictated by the requirements of the job."

It's also pretty clear that the location of the OP's home is dictated by him, not his employer. Therefore any home to office travel expenses reimbursed by the employer would be taxable, and the chances of the OP getting tax relief on renting some alternative office accomodation would be about nil.

But that's just my opinion.:)