Mixed Working - Company Home Office

[ladymuck]

I am struggling to understand why you would leave your office when you are working on the brolly contract or why you need to pay yourself to use the office space.

Who advised you that this was necessary?

[supersteamer]

I am struggling to understand why you would leave your office when you are working on the brolly contract or why you need to pay yourself to use the office space.

It's not the office itself (which is part of my house), it's the stuff that's in it - the chair, desk, monitors, printer, networking, computers etc. are all owned by MyCo (and bought wholly exclusively and necessarily for MyCo). It's not a big room. There's no space in there to fit in another desk and chair (which I can leap over into whenever I need to work on my brolly contract). And I can hardly dismantle all my furniture and IT kit and haul it in and out of the room every hour or so for the benefit of keeping the tax man happy. (Hence the suggestion of ME leaving the office as an option).

So I'd not be paying to use the office, but to use the stuff that's in it.

[mangled]

Incidental personal use of company equipment or premises does not give rise to a tax liability. HMRC guidance (don't have link to hand, sorry) states that incidentalness does *not* depend on proportion of use but upon how necessary the equipment is in respect of its prime company purpose and whether any part of reason for the purchase of the equipment was for personal use. If any part of the purchase was intended as personal use then the cost is not allowed as a business expense.

So, for example, your business receives a file once a month that can only be opened on a Mac (hypothetically) and it is your business decision that you must open/process this file, taking 5 minutes a month to work on it using the Mac. THEN the cost of the Mac is allowable as a business expense. EVEN THOUGH you spend 5 hours a day using the Mac to watch porn. PROVIDED that watching porn did not comprise any part of your reason for buying the Mac.

But note that under some circumstances IR35 might apply so as to prevent the offsetting of the cost of the Mac against tax anyway, thus obviating any financial distinction between a business purpose and private purpose anyway.

Hth,

[northernladuk]

It's not the office itself (which is part of my house), it's the stuff that's in it - the chair, desk, monitors, printer, networking, computers etc. are all owned by MyCo (and bought wholly exclusively and necessarily for MyCo). It's not a big room. There's no space in there to fit in another desk and chair (which I can leap over into whenever I need to work on my brolly contract). And I can hardly dismantle all my furniture and IT kit and haul it in and out of the room every hour or so for the benefit of keeping the tax man happy. (Hence the suggestion of ME leaving the office as an option).

So I'd not be paying to use the office, but to use the stuff that's in it.

Have you detailed where the boundary between your work office and home office is? Might be worth getting a floor plan and just highlighting the area that is your work office and put it in a folder as evidence.

[Lance]

Have you detailed where the boundary between your work office and home office is? Might be worth getting a floor plan and just highlighting the area that is your work office and put it in a folder as evidence.

OP will need two folders for evidence. One for LTD and the other for personal. He can't use the business evidence folder for a personal tax investigation IMO.
Will also need to understand the GDPR implications of a company folder containing personal information. It should really be locked and sealed, preferably encrypted but that is more challenging on paper.

IANAL

[northernladuk]

OP will need two folders for evidence. One for LTD and the other for personal. He can't use the business evidence folder for a personal tax investigation IMO.
Will also need to understand the GDPR implications of a company folder containing personal information. It should really be locked and sealed, preferably encrypted but that is more challenging on paper.

IANAL

Erm... So does my LTD need to be registered as holding PI information? I split my time between my office and dining room as per the OP but my dining room pretty lavish so no issue with using LTD stuff for inside work. I just have my PI stuff in a lever arch file though so think I've got a problem.

[northernladuk]

OP - Do you have one of these shared workplace areas near by. Maybe go use that for the inside work so it's totally separate to the home office and all above board?

You wouldn't be able to claim the mileage to this work area though.

[ladymuck]

As you say your office isn't big enough for a second table, how about creating a table on casters that slides over your office table so you're not physically putting your brolly work onto your ltd co's table? You still might have to squeeze a second chair in though.

[northernladuk]

Looking through your posting history there is no mention of a part time gig. They are very rare to come across and you say you have two? I'm finding that a tad difficult to believe? Are you telling porky pies?

If you are running two full time gigs side by side on each others time then your problem actually goes away. It's only you working part time (so you say) that is an issue with the kit.

[MonkeysUncle]

I honestly cant figure out if this is a tulippost and you are trolling him/her or this is a serious discussion?