Do you think it is feasible to claim more than the fixed amount for working from home now that heat and light costs have exploded. If so how much do you think you should claim.
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Self employed, possibly. Employed, very unlikely.
Employees are restricted to expenses wholly exclusively and necessarily incurred in performing the duties of their employment. This is very restrictive, as most expenses are incurred to make it able for you to perform the duties, rather than actually in performing the duties.
Self employed it's expenses wholly and exclusively incurred for the purposes of the trade. So quite a bit more relaxed than the standard employees would need to meet.
Even for the S-E I think the test would be hard to meet if any material 'increase' in the claim was considered.
All the focus on energy efficiency tends to look at the whole building (keeping cold out and warmth in), but very few people (unless stony broke) try to keep their bedroom/office comfortably warm all day whilst letting every other room drop to near freezing (by keeping internal doors shut etc).
So if client is heating the whole residence 'because I'm working from home', then why should we (the other taxpayers) subsidise keeping their kitchen, toilet and everywhere else nice and toasty?
Fully agree that people are wasteful and their views on how much it actually cost them are often skewed.
But I was mostly thinking it would largely depend on the trade - and it's purpose. Someone with a workshop in a spare room/garage would possibly have a good case for the increased costs (apportioned of course, but still based on overall use....even if wasteful/inefficient use). While someone spending an hour a day doing invoices/books would unlikely be able to justify a claim for more than the £6pw.
It's buttons anyway.
Nice to have, better than nothing but, in the big scheme of things, it's not going to make a lot of difference to anybody's life.
It's almost certain to cost more to work out the extra cost than the tax relief on it.
With a bit of luck, they'll jack up the allowance a bit. We can always hope.
thinking of two employees totally working from home and the cost of the utilities are rising fast
Have the employees made any saving on commuting costs?
They should be asking their employer to chip in. Assume employers are saving something.
Not relevant really.
It’s entirely relevant to the question whether employees are better or worse off working from home which is a pretty short distance from the OP’s point about the impact of rising utility costs for those WFH.
They have also saved on their Starbucks and sushi.
A friend of mine was spending the equivalent of a month’s net salary every year to park near his office (public transport not being a viable alternative). He also now saves fuel costs and a minimum of 2 hours per day on the motorway. He’s looking to sell his car as he and other half can manage with one if WFH continues.
Of course WFH costs in terms of home utilities but I’m surprised at the number of people who love it.
They have also saved on their Starbucks and sushi.
The last sushi I had was undercooked.
I sent it back.
The claim from HMRC was intended to be limited. It was about Covid.
Employer should be paying
And if employer needs to deduct tax, then the employer should just pay a bit more.
Employer gets tax relief on the payment made
We decided to pay all staff the WFH allowance. Personally, I'm saving between £75 and £100 a month in fuel or train costs and I balance that out with the additional gas and electricity I pay by WFH. No staff have grumbled because we're so flexible. WFH is likely to be permanent for us as a practice by and large.
Problem is likely to be next winter if energy prices don't come down. At the moment, if I'm cold I put the heating on, but i do have a fan heater and shall cocoon myself in the study and keep that one room warm. The dogs won't like it as they like to roam the house!
Just to cheer you all up, yesterday we renewed three electric accounts effective from 1/10/22 via our broker, the increase on the previous charge was 118% (ie estimated new annual cost 2.18 times the old one). We could have got slightly cheaper re a 2 year deal but the 3 year was actually more expensive.
I took the glass half full approach that £20,000 pa more for just one year with the hope (cross fingers) of a price reduction by Sept 2023 was better than £20,00 pa more for two years.
I appreciate this was commercial space not residential but the scale of the increases is certainly challenging and for the first time ever (25 years this year) I am going to be writing to our tenants to whom we rebill these costs explaining what is going on re pricing.(At least my Gas accounts run to September 2023-the irony is they are with Gazprom)