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Sunday, 22 November 2009

Money, tax and benefits

Tax relief for household expenses when working at home

If you are employed specifically to work at or from home, and have no alternative but to do so, you may be able to get tax relief on some of your household expenses. You can go back several years to get the relief - the time you've got depends on whether you've previously sent in a Self Assessment tax return.

Relief for expenses if you have to work at home

You can get tax relief for the extra household expenses that you have to pay because you have to work at or from home. Typically these extra expenses include:

the extra cost of gas and electricity to heat and light your work area
business telephone calls

You won't be able to get relief on domestic expenses that you're paying anyway - like your mortgage or council tax. You also won't be able to get relief for expenses that relate to both business and private use - such as your telephone line rental, or Internet access.

How much relief you can get

You can get either:

a flat rate deduction of £3.00 per week (from 2008-09) for each week that you've got to work at home, this doesn't include the cost of business telephone calls
a larger amount if your extra expenses are higher than £3.00 - but you'll have to show how you've calculated the figure

The rate for 2007-08 and earlier is £2.00 per week.

What if you volunteer to work at home?

You might volunteer to work at home under a 'homeworking arrangement'. A homeworking arrangement is an agreement with your employer that you'll work at home on a regular basis.

You don't have to work at home every day but there must be a regular pattern - for example two days at home and three days in your employer's premises each week. The work you do at home must be work that you're required to do as part of your employment.

If you've got an arrangement like that, your employer can contribute towards your expenses of working at home - £3.00 per week (from 2008-09) or more if you can show that you had to spend more than that. You won't have to pay tax and National Insurance contributions on the amount.

However, if your employer doesn't contribute you can't get tax relief for your expenses of working at home.

How to get tax relief

If you have to work at or from home follow the link below 'How to get allowances and reliefs - employees or directors' to find out how to get tax relief for your household expenses.

If you haven't completed a tax return you've got five years from the 31 October following the end of the year concerned to ask for tax relief. If you've previously completed a return it's five years from 31 January following the end of the year concerned.