Working from home tax relief

Jeremy535897

unholyangel said:

Jeremy535897 said:

The £6 a week claim is what you can claim if you have to work from home and you don't want to produce any invoices or other proof. It is not the only option.

Anything else must meet the "wholly, exclusively and necessarily" test. Enhancing your broadband will not meet that test. Nor will rent. Extra gas and electricity, and the cost of business telephone calls, may do so, but whether the excess you could claim over £6 a week is worth working it out for and keeping the records depends on the figures. See https://www.gov.uk/tax-relief-for-employees/working-at-home

The £6pw still needs to be W+E+N. You just don't need to keep records to justify the figure. 

Are you perhaps getting confused with the rules for employers reimbursing extra expense/paying the £6 per week? The test for that is more forgiving and payments can be made for voluntary/informal homeworking arrangements (while claiming relief from HMRC wouldn't be permitted). 

No, just shorthand. If you have to work from home, that's the only question for the £6 a week, because it is automatically accepted as wholly and exclusively, and the "have to" is the necessarily bit.

unholyangel

Jeremy535897 said:

unholyangel said:

Jeremy535897 said:

The £6 a week claim is what you can claim if you have to work from home and you don't want to produce any invoices or other proof. It is not the only option.

Anything else must meet the "wholly, exclusively and necessarily" test. Enhancing your broadband will not meet that test. Nor will rent. Extra gas and electricity, and the cost of business telephone calls, may do so, but whether the excess you could claim over £6 a week is worth working it out for and keeping the records depends on the figures. See https://www.gov.uk/tax-relief-for-employees/working-at-home

The £6pw still needs to be W+E+N. You just don't need to keep records to justify the figure. 

Are you perhaps getting confused with the rules for employers reimbursing extra expense/paying the £6 per week? The test for that is more forgiving and payments can be made for voluntary/informal homeworking arrangements (while claiming relief from HMRC wouldn't be permitted). 

No, just shorthand. If you have to work from home, that's the only question for the £6 a week, because it is automatically accepted as wholly and exclusively, and the "have to" is the necessarily bit.

The test still applies. As it explains in the manual I linked, they (HMRC) just consider that test met where:

• the duties that the employee performs at home are substantive duties of the employment. “Substantive duties” are duties that an employee has to carry out and that represent all or part of the central duties of the employment 

• those duties cannot be performed without the use of appropriate facilities

• no such appropriate facilities are available to the employee on the employer’s premises (or the nature of the job requires the employee to live so far from the employer’s premises that it is unreasonable to expect him or her to travel to those premises on a daily basis)

• at no time either before or after the employment contract is drawn up is the employee able to choose between working at the employer’s premises or elsewhere.

The £6pw is just an exception to having to calculate actual expenses & keep records. s336 still applies. If you check the manual I linked (in my previous post), it explains this. 

Jeremy535897

I get that. I just didn't think that OP particularly wanted a long analysis of why you get £6 a week tax deduction if you have to work from home. Maybe I should not have used precisely the language I did, but nothing turns on it. Life's too short.

Semple

AndrePearTree said:

Hey,
Thank you all for all the information and answers to my question. 
I have smart meter and I pay monthly to control my bills and reach the quarter with a balance of £0, so every month I go to my smart meter and I do any additional payment is required to meet this condition, I believe the cost is basically because as a family we spend much more time at home and while working I have 2 PC on at all time. 

I am not trying to get advantage of the system, just trying to go though this with less damage as possible as anybody else, my wife has been furlough and she is expecting to go back to work on 15 Aug but we are not sure if she will start in full time or if just a few days a week. 
She has been getting 80% of her normal wage, which means we seen the total family income lower by close to £200, this was not an issue at the beginning but we are now going through any savings we had to keep all bills paid. 

I will have a look and see where I can do some savings on our bills. 

Again thanks for your answers and advice.

Just to call you out on these bits.

You can't complain that you need additional relief because your family is spending more time at home, unfortunately that's just life. If you're really concerned about the extra electricity in use, then rather than your family watch TV/play on games consoles etc, have them do things that don't use electricity - i.e. puzzles / board games etc. 

Also i find it highly unlikely that you require the use of two PC's to perform your work. Therefore any personal PC should be switched off during the day.

diggingdude

Semple said:

AndrePearTree said:

Hey,
Thank you all for all the information and answers to my question. 
I have smart meter and I pay monthly to control my bills and reach the quarter with a balance of £0, so every month I go to my smart meter and I do any additional payment is required to meet this condition, I believe the cost is basically because as a family we spend much more time at home and while working I have 2 PC on at all time. 

I am not trying to get advantage of the system, just trying to go though this with less damage as possible as anybody else, my wife has been furlough and she is expecting to go back to work on 15 Aug but we are not sure if she will start in full time or if just a few days a week. 
She has been getting 80% of her normal wage, which means we seen the total family income lower by close to £200, this was not an issue at the beginning but we are now going through any savings we had to keep all bills paid. 

I will have a look and see where I can do some savings on our bills. 

Again thanks for your answers and advice.

Just to call you out on these bits.

You can't complain that you need additional relief because your family is spending more time at home, unfortunately that's just life. If you're really concerned about the extra electricity in use, then rather than your family watch TV/play on games consoles etc, have them do things that don't use electricity - i.e. puzzles / board games etc. 

Also i find it highly unlikely that you require the use of two PC's to perform your work. Therefore any personal PC should be switched off during the day.

Two people working = two PC's?

Semple

diggingdude said:

Semple said:

AndrePearTree said:

Hey,
Thank you all for all the information and answers to my question. 
I have smart meter and I pay monthly to control my bills and reach the quarter with a balance of £0, so every month I go to my smart meter and I do any additional payment is required to meet this condition, I believe the cost is basically because as a family we spend much more time at home and while working I have 2 PC on at all time. 

I am not trying to get advantage of the system, just trying to go though this with less damage as possible as anybody else, my wife has been furlough and she is expecting to go back to work on 15 Aug but we are not sure if she will start in full time or if just a few days a week. 
She has been getting 80% of her normal wage, which means we seen the total family income lower by close to £200, this was not an issue at the beginning but we are now going through any savings we had to keep all bills paid. 

I will have a look and see where I can do some savings on our bills. 

Again thanks for your answers and advice.

Just to call you out on these bits.

You can't complain that you need additional relief because your family is spending more time at home, unfortunately that's just life. If you're really concerned about the extra electricity in use, then rather than your family watch TV/play on games consoles etc, have them do things that don't use electricity - i.e. puzzles / board games etc. 

Also i find it highly unlikely that you require the use of two PC's to perform your work. Therefore any personal PC should be switched off during the day.

Two people working = two PC's?

According to his OP his wife has been on furlough, so very much doubtful that is the case. 

Sooler

The company provided "a laptop". OP has one PC for work, and one PC for posting on MSE

How much electricity does a laptop use per hour in the UK?

A laptop typically uses about 50 watts of electricity, the equivalent of 0.05 kWh. This means that if a laptop is on for eight hours a day, it will cost 5p a day to run the laptop (based on an average energy unit cost of 12.5 p/kWh).

https://smarterbusiness.co.uk/blogs/how-much-energy-do-my-appliances-use-infographic/

WFH\Furlough costs per month

• Work laptop power £1
• Other power £19 - monitor the smart meter to see where and how much power is being consumed thoughout the day.
• BB £5
• Wife's 20% salary reduction £200

WFH\Furlough savings per month

• OP commute £40
• Wife's commute ?
• possible Tax relief £5
  

KellyLiam

I'm working from home and can say that I like it as I have time for everything