Working from home expenses

[Mrsmchammer]

I've had to work from home, like many thousands of others. My covid role is classed as essential so it not only carried on through the pandemic it became basically 7 days a week, 10 or so hours a day at some points.
My wages were not affected, and I have not been offered extra money towards electricity bills or for my phone which is integral to the service I provide.

Has anyone WFH been awarded a stipend for their extra expenses by moving their office into their living room?? We have to work from home for at least 3 more months.
I'm just curious to see how organisations reimbursed their staff, if at all.

I would have thought they should be paying for any business phone calls if there’s not an option to call via your laptop over wifi. Electricity is a stretch. Presumably you were commuting before and that incurred some expense like petrol or train fare?

nothing for me, OP. Won't be offered. I had business trip expenses back in March that I can't even get reimbursed for. I have also worked way more hours than I was paid for, and worked without any salary for months (soon will mostly be reimbursed, backdated). My employer will gain £30 million additional debt this year due to virus controls. Senior staff are being asked to take voluntary paycuts.

I am saving a personal fortune on commuting, tbf.

There is a weekly allowance you are legally entitled to claim. Look details up under money savings expert. Or at the very least claim the tax back on it

It's very tricky to claim back electricity etc, made deliberately so by Hmrc, which is why they introduced the allowance

Our company gave everyone who hadn't been furloughed a set amount in this month's wage. I'm not sure if this was the rain or not as I wasn't at the meeting.

*reason, not rain

I think you can claim £6 pw off of tax bill if you are forced to work from home but not if it is at your request and you could be working in office. You should be able to claim during Covid period.

You can claim a deduction of £6 per week in your tax code. Meaning you save tax on that amount. There are conditions to that relief. Change your phone tariff to unlimited calls if paying a large bill. My lack of commuting costs more than makes up for work from home bills.

You can only claim the 20% tax on the £6 a week.

I get a monthly payment of £28 or so for wfh

It is a government payment I believe. I am NHS.

There is an online calculator tool on the revenue website.

Has your business lost money due to covid / lockdown? If so, I'd probably be thankful to have a job, tbh.

Your employer can either pay you £6 a week, tax free. Or you can claim tax relief on £6 a week, which is £1.50. It seems slightly unfair if your employer isn't the type to pay the £6.

I'm moving to a permanent WFH job soon, after WFH during the pandemic in this job, so will just claim for the entire tax year at the end of it.

Or maybe it's £1.20 per week, actually. Anyway, I suppose it's better than a kick in the teeth.

Ours have said no. We can claim the tax back ourselves but they argued we are better off without commutes etc....

Has your business lost money due to covid / lockdown? If so, I'd probably be thankful to have a job, tbh.

That's a slippery slope. Lots of companies will be saving a fortune by having so many staff at home.

I too have not claimed for things like electricity, because the money saved on commuting, buying lunch out etc, more than covers it.

Phone calls are already covered by using a work mobile or placing calls over my internet (which costs me no more than normal).

How much money have you saved on the commute?

Just be careful. People who only know a strong employment market have no idea what it is like to live in a weak one. A lot of people are about to get a miserable shock.

DH and I have both been wfh during lockdown. I haven't had any extra money, but DH's company gave their employees a one-off allowance of £400 to spend on equipment - he bought a desk and chair, as he was getting back ache from working at a table that was too low (he's tall). Some of his colleagues spent it on computer equipment, but he already had what he needed.

Overall we've both saved money by wfh, despite paying for electricity etc - I guess it depends how expensive your commute is.

It's a difficult one. We've been told that we'll be WFH for the foreseeable future and have been offered £100 towards home office furniture. However, we have also been on 15% paycuts so the offer of £100 is far less than I am already down over the last 3 months. I work in an industry where it's common to have your travel expenses paid so I'm not any better off by not commuting. My bigger concern is autumn / winter when we will inevitably end up using far more heating and electricity than normal and the impact financially of that especially as DH has been made redundant.

Thank you all. Was just wondering. I wasn't going to even ask at work but I did wonder about how others organisations did this. Especially if this is long term.

I'm very lucky, my job is guaranteed and where I work has not lost money so there won't be any redundancies.

I walk or for some situations I may have a short drive. I always make my own lunch anyway to have in my bag as I may be in a different building or location throughout the day so I'm not saving anything either other than the odd coffee.
Apart from anything, I just don't enjoy WFH anyway. I find it lonely (despite being closely surrounded by my family) and my job is definitely more suited to being face to face.

Ta 4 info about the HMRC £6/week.

"Lots of companies will be saving a fortune by having so many staff at home."

... how? My employer is running a blended system (people like me at home, but some employees have to be on site). So no savings on ventilation, aircon, daily cleaning or building maintenance and very small savings on electricity or aircon. It's possible the milk deliveries have stopped, I suppose (not every dept got them, anyway).

@lljkk really you can't possibly understand how it would save some companies money?

We were told that nothing would be paid for and that we should balance home extra working expenses against money saved on commuting.

I do spend less overall but quite a few of my colleagues cycle or walk to work so are worse off.

This is an interesting development in Switzerland

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/nypost.com/2020/05/27/swiss-companies-must-help-pay-rent-for-employees-working-from-home/amp/

There's also the health & safety aspect. I already have a spare room with desk & computer chair which means my wfh experience may be completely different to someone renting a bedroom in a house share.