Working from Home

If you are self employed then you already know what a necessary pain it is to keep a record of all your expenses.

If you spend any of your time working from home, and who doesn’t, even if it is to maintain your records, then you would probably expect to be able to offset a proportion of the cost of heat and light etc from your household bills. It can be a bit of a nightmare to determine how much this should be but thankfully HMRC have thought ahead and have laid down a set amount under the simplified expenses rules.

The simplified expenses scheme makes work-from-home expenses much easier to calculate. You can make use of simplified expenses provided you work from home at least 25 hours per month, and you can use it for rent, utilities, and other similar costs.

The scheme doesn’t cover internet or telephone expenses but these can be claimed separately by calculating the actual percentage of the total expense that is used within the business.

The work from home flat rates for the 2018/19 tax year are:

• £10 per month if you work between 25 and 50 hours per month
• £18 per month if you work between 51 and 100 hours per month
• £26 per month if you work 101 or more hours per month

It’s a simple system but very effective.