Employment expenses working from home

[Winterinwonder]

Apologies for posting on this thread. I simply need some urgent assistance as I cannot find the answers on HMRC website.

I’ve made a claim for tax relief on employment expenses as I work from home. The total amount is £4,498.00. How much will I get back as a rebate?

When you submit it just asks where you want the rebate to go to and that’s it. There’s no guidance notes at all that I can see on my login.

Any help would be really appreciated.

If you've incurred employment expenses of £4498, surely you claim from your employer & they reimburse that amount. Unless you're self employed. You've not really given any detail.

That's a huge amount of money and far higher than usual claims. How is it made up? HMRC guidance is for the basic £4 per week, i.e. £312 per year. HMRC rules require your costs to be explicitly required to be spent under the contract of employment and for there to be no duality of purpose. For such a large claim, I'd expect HMRC to open an enquiry, ask exactly how it's broken down and evidence (i.e. bills etc), copy of contract of employment showing the spending was required, etc., and even then, to argue against such a large amount.

HMRC guidance is here:-

https://www.gov.uk/tax-relief-for-employees/working-at-home

"What you can claim for
You can only claim for things to do with your work, such as:

• business phone calls
• gas and electricity for your work area

You cannot claim for things that you use for both private and business use, such as rent or broadband access."

What are you claiming for/on?

How have you possibly spent over £4k on expenses relating to working from home through employment?

The guideline from HMRC is £4 per week.

That sounds excessive , you either flat rate or calculate based on the costs of heating the room you work in only not the whole house , you can’t claim wifi unless you only set it up for work use etc. The tax relief will depend on your employment status

Tax relief depends on your tax bracket. That is a lot to claim if you are employed so could be investigated.

That sounds a huge amount to me, what is it based on?

I'm self employed and pay for a studio as well as materials and don't CL that much as expenses. Are you employed or self employed?

The rules have changed since April 22 too - if you are able to work in workplace then you can’t claim for choosing to be at home

Claiming tax relief on or after 6 April 2022You can claim if your employer has not already paid your expenses and you have additional household costs as a result of working from home.
To claim tax relief, you cannot have just chosen to work from home.
One of the following rules must also apply:

• there are no appropriate facilities available for you to perform your job on your employer's premises
• your job requires you to travel an unreasonable distance to and from your employer's premises on a daily basis
• you are required, under government restrictions, to work from home

If you're employed then you shouldn't have that level of expenses and you've therefore made a fraudulent claim. It may take a while and they might initially pay it due to the pay now process later policy but eventually you will need to pay it back plus possible penalties.

It is your responsibility to make sure you submit correct figures and it sounds like you know you haven't.

Just spurred me on to make a claim backdated to March 20 but just at flat rate - my office is in Leeds so a 220 mile round trip would be a bit unreasonable

How much?! You haven’t completely converted a bedroom into an office have you and thought HMRC would pay for it? As they won’t.

How have you racked up that much? Unless you are self employed and need to buy lots of materials for items you sell?

The calculation is over a four year period.
£100 for clothes each year based on my industry.
£720 for business line and broadband each year and the remainder as contribution towards utility bills. This element works out less than fifty percent of what I pay

Are you employed or self employed?

If you're paid by an employer to wfh why would the tax payer pay your broadband bill?

Are we actually allowed to do that...if so, I'm regretting not keeping receipts 😂

Yeah unless you're self employed you've got no chance. Why would you need specific clothes if you're working from home?!

I am employed. My employer is is 210 miles away each way. I have receipts for everything and no the employer does not refund anything. Working from home is within my contract

Google duality of purpose.

For utilities if you live in a six room house the most you can claim is 1/6th of bills

The business line I assume is a designated phone line for work and same with wifi ?

You can’t claim for clothes regardless of who you are as you need to be clothes for basic decency reasons. And to claim your broadband you’d need to show in detail how you’ve apportioned between personal and business use. Put that claim in and it’s so cf they’d think it’s tax evasion rather than just an innocent mistake!

You really need to read up on the rules properly - you're miles off with what you think you're entitled to.

You can't claim for clothes. If they have a company logo you can claim a small allowance towards laundry, but that's all.

You cannot claim for broadband if it's possible that you can use it personally. Besides, as a condition of your employment you would need to provide internet access, this isn't something you can get relief on.

The amount for a contribution towards utility bills is exceptionally high. You certainly can't claim anywhere close to 50%.

As an accountant my advice is don't be silly and submit the claim.

So you wouldn't have broadband if you didn't work from home?.I think you might be disappointed with the result

Why should HMRC pay your business expenses? Your employer should pay you an allowance every month towards your extra expenses not the tax payer!

Oh and £60 for a broadband and phone line is a terrible deal!