My client runs a sole trader business as a dog walker. She spends most of her working time out and about, but spends a small amount of time at home writing up records, organising her diary, general office admin etc.
Prior to 2013-14. we claimed £4 per week for her use of home - the small amount of time involved in working from home does not justify the time taken to come up with a detailed calculation based on actual bills.
However, with the new Simpified Expenses rules, my client would be unable to claim the minimum £10 per month as she does not do 25 hours of work per week at home.
Are we still able to claim £4 per week? Or is the choice now solely between Simplified Expenses (where she can claim nothing) or using actual expenses (not worth it for the time taken to do the calculation and get all the paperwork together), effectively meaning that nothing can be claimed.
Thanks for any advice!
Related resources
Replies (6)
Please login or register to join the discussion.
Only £4?
£4 per week does not seem to justify the cost of working from home for any self-employed person in my experience.
If I was in your shoes I would make life simple for both myself and the client and set the Use of Home expense at either £300 or £600 dependent on the amount of turnover the business generates.
We've been doing it this way for some time now and it has never been an issue for any of our clients.
Without paperwork?
£4 per week does not seem to justify the cost of working from home for any self-employed person in my experience.
If I was in your shoes I would make life simple for both myself and the client and set the Use of Home expense at either £300 or £600 dependent on the amount of turnover the business generates.
We've been doing it this way for some time now and it has never been an issue for any of our clients.
That sounds unusual practice.
If the use of home is more than trivial (ie. the self employed person works at a desk in their home for a reasonable amount of time) then I would always recommend they use the actual basis to make the use of home claim, which may indeed come out at the figures you suggest. But the difference is, we would have the paperwork to prove it in case of HMRC investigation.
I would not be comfortable with such a large claim without any supporting documentation - and my point is, for such a tiny amount of time that my client works from home, then it would not be worthwhile spending time coming up with such a calculation.
I drove
£4 per week does not seem to justify the cost of working from home for any self-employed person in my experience.
If I was in your shoes I would make life simple for both myself and the client and set the Use of Home expense at either £300 or £600 dependent on the amount of turnover the business generates.
We've been doing it this way for some time now and it has never been an issue for any of our clients.
I drove at 80 mph through a village the other day. The speed camera didn't flash and I didn't hear anything about it. I would recommend that everyone drives like that and the bigger car you have the faster you should drive.
Oh I see
Everybody else should do what you do should they, because you are getting away with it, and may even be under-egging your clients' puddings in some cases.
BIM47825 is your friend (see examples 1 and 3) and was written when HMRC's "permitted" amount for employee expense claims was £2 per week. http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/bimmanual/BIM47825.htm
Simpler Expenses
You can also now use HMRC 's rules for Simpler Expenses
https://www.gov.uk/simpler-income-tax-simplified-expenses/working-from-home
Not appliable
You can also now use HMRC 's rules for Simpler Expenses
https://www.gov.uk/simpler-income-tax-simplified-expenses/working-from-home
As per my original post, there is no provision for my client's circumstances in the simplified expenses rules because my client works from home less than 25 hours per month. Hence my question.