Self assessment tax return - can anyone advise?

[IorekByrnison]

How do you work out what proportion of your electricity/gas/phone bill to declare as an expense when you're working freelance from home?

Thought you might find this link to the IR useful

I asked DH how it was supposed to be done but the reply was complicated so the link seems easiest but I will try and summarise

Phone Bill- work out from an itemised bill the cost of the outgoing calls. As far as the line rental is concerned, DH would estimate the length of time you are working from home and then work out what proportion of your waking day it equals (say a third) and then allocate a third of the line rental to the business.

Electricity and gas you are supposed to work out what percentage of your home relates to work (do you use the spare room or something) and then take that percentage of your bill as being business related. This can be worked out by using a percentage of square footage of the house or by the percentage of the number of rooms.

From there you are supposed to then work out what percentage of your time is spent in that room working. So if you use 10% of your house as an office and you work for a 3rd of your day the allocation would be one third of 10% of the total bill.

Hopefully the link explains it better than me.

DH says the Revenue aren't that bothered about the calculations but the VAT people are pickier so be prepared to justify your answer.

That's brilliant Niecie, thank you.