Working from Home

ahorrando

Hi,
thank you for the insight, I pay rent (£850 two rooms and reception), one room is dedicated to office, i have broadband for business exclusive (£25 month) dedicated tel line (£50 with calls)....heating, water, elect.....£80 month....Council tax as per the revenue site is deductable and is £1,000
£280 rent+£25 broad+£50 tel+£28=£383 month, £4956 in 12 months,

Some questions:
1. 40% of the £4,956 is £1,838....is my assumption wrong? can I claim back £1,838 next tax return?
2. I'm in PAYE, they already took my taxes...can I claim the whole 100% of my expense £ 4,956?

(I have invoices and proof of everything, line is exclusive for business and is separate from home, desk and cabinets on the room...)
I have been working from home since 2003...

3. does it mean I can claim 2003-2004, 2004-2005?

thank you for your feedback..
dr
....

B33fy

Cannot answer the first two parts but I believe you have until 31 Jan 2006 to go back as far as 1999-2000.

I am in the process of claiming for the exclusive business use of a room and intend to go back to 1999-2000, go to https://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/eimanual/eim32835.htm for an how to calculate your tax deductables

bridiej

As someone else has pointed out, you need to be careful about saying you use one room exclusively as an office as the council can charge you business rates for that room.

B33fy

bridiej wrote:

As someone else has pointed out, you need to be careful about saying you use one room exclusively as an office as the council can charge you business rates for that room.

Reading this does cause me some concern

http://www.voa.gov.uk/publications/public_fact_sheets/workingfromhome.pdf
it looks like the tax man will give with one hand and take away with the other, I guess nothing changes!

B33fy

Though this seems to indicate there is no problem http://www.stockton.gov.uk/resources/business/ratesbilling/ratesworkhome/ and scenario 5 on http://www.voa.gov.uk/publications/public_fact_sheets/workingfromhome.pdf does perhaps indicate there is hope yet

ahorrando

B33fy,
thanks for the links, anyway, as a home worker I don't have to change the character of the house or add strange equipment, so as your link http://www.stockton.gov.uk/resources/business/ratesbilling/ratesworkhome/ I don't have to worry about business rate...since 2003 I'm looking at a lot of ££££sI'm submiting this week and will let you all know once I get an answer from the inland revenue
I think the accountants that advised the other users were wrong; it looks like is worth it, if you work from home all the time you will get a good business benefit from claiming the cost back.

B33fy

Good luck, I'm giving it a go, now where are all our old utility bills?

Dutchgirl_2

There is a special arrangement for lecturers (who teach and do research) to work from home. You can deduct a portion of your running costs (see links below), basically the costs divided by the number of rooms in your house. It seems that this is exclusively applicable to people working for universities and I've successfully claimed under this scheme. It's not clear (to me) yet whether you can also include cost of broadband, especially you need it for research.

Relevant links:
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/senew/SE70713.htm
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/senew/se70714.htm

nottoogreatwithmoney

Hi there, I am new to the money saving expert forum (and in fact to any forum), so forgive me for my lack of knowledge about how one should post.
Anyway, I was very interested to read about working from home and wondered if there is any one out there who could give me some ideas as to companies looking for employees working from home - (not the stuffing envelopes type, etc). I would be interested in working as a "Virtual Assistant/Secretary/etc" - can anyone help?

tinalives

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