Most people working from home were claiming the £4 per week allowance based on HMRC guidance, but this has now been updated for the self employed.
You can now calculate your allowable expenses using a flat rate based on the hours you work from home each month.
This means you don’t have to work out the proportion of personal and business use for your home, eg how much of your utility bills are for business.
The flat rate doesn’t include telephone or internet expenses. You can claim the business proportion of these bills by working out the actual costs.
You can only use simplified expenses if you work for 25 hours or more a month from home.
| Hours of business use per month | Flat rate per month |
|---|---|
| 25 to 50 | £10 |
| 51 to 100 | £18 |
| 101 and more | £26 |
Example
You worked 40 hours from home for 10 months, but worked 60 hours during 2 particular months:
10 months x £10 = £100
2 months x £18 = £36
Total you can claim = £136
Use the simplified expenses checker to compare what you can claim using simplified expenses with what you can claim by working out the actual costs.
https://www.gov.uk/simpler-income-tax-simplified-expenses/working-from-home
Alternatively you could claim you can claim a proportion (based on the number of rooms and hours of business use) of your household expenses
- Mortgage interest or rent
- Council tax
- Water rates
- Repairs and maintenance
- Building and contents insurance
- Electricity
- Gas, oil or other heating costs
- Cleaning
- Telephone (based on usage)
- Broadband
You can draw up a home rental agreement to reclaim these costs.
The Rental Agreement can be very basic, it just needs to show:
- The Parties – Employee, Company, Home Office Address
- The agreement is for use of the accommodation, furniture etc (‘the Home Office’)
- The hours it will be used
- The rental charge
or your could use an agreement like this one
https://www.rocketlawyer.co.uk/documents-and-forms/home-office-space-agreement.rl#
If the rental is only to cover costs (and not to make a profit) then it should not create any tax liability.
Some experts say that claiming Mortgage Interest and Council Tax can be queried but that would depend on circumstances.
There are also other isuues to consider such as VAT and Capital Gains and these are covered in the blog below.
http://stevejbicknell.com/2013/01/06/what-are-the-tax-issues-and-advantages-of-a-home-office/
steve@bicknells.net
Business Accountant 
Reblogged this on .
Excellent as usual