Expenses Changing?

[themistry]

Anyone read this?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programme...ch/7459639.stm

TM

[moorfield]

For what it's worth the "use of home office" allowance has increased slightly this year, HMRC slipped it into the last employer bulletin, but most of the accountants don't seem to have cottoned on yet.

http://forums.contractoruk.com/531190-post1.html

[expat]

Anyone read this?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programme...ch/7459639.stm

TM

I can't be arsed claiming something that will only get back less than 1 day's billing.

[ratewhore]

So you don't need a separate room anymore then?

[VectraMan]

I saw this yesterday.

I was confused because I thought they'd changed the rules in April to cut down the working at home expenses to just a portion of bills, and not rent and mortgage interest.

I've been full time at home for a month now, and have the spare room set up as an office so I'm probably missing out here. I CBA with £3 per week though, and working out the bills is a PITA too. A third of the rent would be worth having though.

[beeker]

can't remember where I got the calculation from but, I did the following:

total all house bills (mortgage, heating, Council Tax, insurance etc), "B"

B/12 = monthly cost of running entire household, "C"

Square meterage of office space / entire house office space = percentage of space attributable to MyCo's work, "W"

so, C*0.W = £Cost for running office space per month. Assuming you don't spend every waking hour in there which I don't - I reduced this somewhat and charged the Company a portion of the total cost I worked out.

beeker.

[VectraMan]

It used to be on number of rooms in the house (though I could never work out what counted as a room).

[ratewhore]

As it seems you have to adjust the amount claimed subject to the amount of work you do from home, I suspect that, for most of us, the %age is fairly low.

Hardly seems the effort imho...

[NickFitz]

So you don't need a separate room anymore then?

Indeed. That's precisely what the article means when it states that:

HMRC are content to allow a proportion of these costs to be claimed against the income of the business if certain criteria are met, such as:

The area of the home is used exclusively for business purposes for a prescribed amount of time - say, 9am to 5pm - this means that if you sit at the kitchen table working you won't qualify for the additional deductions. What the taxman is looking for is an area that has the appearance of an office - so it will contain a desk, chair, storage etc.