self assessment - working from home relief - calculated amount NOT flat rate £6/wk allowance

Sandtree

eddster said:

Sandtree said:

eddster said:

ok thanks Pennywise

So in my case the primary extra cost appears to be for the increased energy use which seems to be circa a 23% increase in energy use from the previous 2019/20 period which is fairly significant as my gas/energy is circa £2500 a year

would the evidenced approach therefore be for me to submit a calculation to demonstrate the difference in usage (for example a value of £575 based on 23% of total energy bill for the year of £2500) or would it be the route of saying (per my initial post calculation) 7% of the house area now used for work per year so 7% of £2500 which at £175 is evidently quite a bit less

my alternative is the option of the £6/week so £312, so the method above used would be crucial in determining which route to go   
assume my actual saving as a 40% tax payer would be 40% of the calculated value (i.e. 40% £312 OR 40% £575)

Understand I'm splitting hairs here in terms of net benefit to me,  but as a non financial person I'm just intrigued

Edd

You are looking at a top down approach but really look at it from bottom up...

What extra costs have you incurred as a result of working from home? Running a laptop is typically under 10p a day, running an LED light next to it is 1p a day... where is the other over £1.09 per day coming from to say the £6/week is insufficient? 

There will be some betterment in there too I imagine, normally you take sandwiches for lunch and cooked meal at home in the evening but now you are having a cooked lunch as well and so electricity/gas consumption but you could have stuck with the packed lunch and saved that cost. 

Has anyone else been at home thats normally at work/school? Running a large screen TV will use much more than a laptop and so in home entertainment may increase fuel costs when you were normally out. All of this may have been offset by the savings from not going out to restaurants, pubs, coffee shops etc but many compensated with buying more stuff or takeaways etc so things didnt offset as much.

you are absolutely right, and I know this really. I just also know I'm about to be hit with at tax invoice due to my depletion in mileage an was looking to see if it could be reduced 🙂
 

But if you arent doing the mileage then you havent been paying for the fuel, wear on the car, getting to services quicker, depreciating the value of the car etc. So in theory you should have most of the monies there from the savings to pay it. Think it was the AA that used to have a per mile calculator by car (cannot access their site as overseas) and plenty of vehicles were well above the standard 45p (fuel economy and fuel costs have changed since I last looked though)

PS... I know the pain of tax invoices and the desire to mitigate it but have to remember to look at it in the round and not isolation