Tax relief items

worried123

Hello

I was retired and decided to go back to work in January working from home for a company.  In April we were given worker status and previous to this we were classed as self employed.  Even despite the worker status now given, we still have to do our own tax returns (an absolute pain the the backside to be honest and something that i have never had to do before).

I am unsure of what i could claim for tax relief.   (I work up to 34 hours a week at home on a dialer system).  I get that i can claim £6 a week for the use of my home as an office (I think)   I also understand that I can claim for the new lap top and headsets that I bought specifically for the work.  However, I am unsure of anything else beyond this.

Can I claim for my wifi at all.  I spend up to about 40 hours a week using it solely for work.  Can i claim for any heating or electricity allowances.....or maybe that is included in the £6 a week use of home as an office.

Apologies if i sound very naive but would appreciate any info anyone could kindly give me.

many thanks

Bookworm105

as someone with "worker" status you doubtless understand you are classed as employee rather than self employed for the purposes of employment law.

as such you are correct that you can claim the £6 per week working from home amount as it appears your contract requires you to do so - ie you have no choice in deciding where you work: at "the office" or at home.
Whether you do 40 hours or 4 hours is irrelevant in the context of employee status, the hours worked element applies only to self employed.

The £6 covers all utility usage. 
If you wanted to claim actual costs instead, you would need a robust method of apportioning costs between personal and business use, bearing in mind that claiming 100% business use can have repercussions for other taxes. You then enter the great lottery whether HMRC would ever call for details of your claim, if they did, their stance would be to harshly challenge it as being unjustified. Much safer to stick with the no questions asked £6.

You can claim for itemised phone call costs where they are business related. If you have a package price you cannot claim if you cannot prove an itemised cost for an itemised call.

you cannot claim for broadband / phone line contract / rental costs unless it is a second landline which is reserved only for business purposes. (I take as read you already have BB access or you won't be posting here, so first installation exception is unlikely to be available to you)

The rest you can look up for yourself, your laptop appears to be eligible for capital allowances. Please read about that yourself so you understand what your tax return will be based on  
Home Workers’ Expenses: What Can they Claim? | Brother UK

worried123

Many thanks indeed.  You have been a great help.  I did not think i was entitled to much tax relief but was not sure.  I am assuming that i can claim for the 2nd lap top i bought specifically for work.....i am just doing last years when we were still classed as self employed.