eWorking Credit/Relief

Just in relation to the 2020 return, Revenue guidance talks about the number of days that someone has worked at home and then using that as the numerator, with a denominator of 365 (or 366, presumably, on the basis that 2020 was a leap year).

The examples refer to someone who just works Monday to Friday and I’m just wondering about the position for someone who (genuinely) works every day (except for annual leave)?

The other aspect is the hassle of pro-rating utility bills which tend to be for uneven periods. Will Revenue accept the relevant percentage of the utility bills which were issued in 2020 rather than having to time apportion ones that straddle 2019/2020 and 2020/2021?

10% of light and heat plus 30% of broadband seems to be the guidance.

Many thanks.

The premise on which eworking relief is based, is that the individual is undertaking work at home under the express direction of their employer; fundamentally it's the section 114 test for deduction, which is extremely difficult to meet, hence Revenue extending a concession to facilitate claims.

I don't know if Revenue will / should accept that an employee (whose employment & employers are subject to OWTA etc), "necessarily" incurs expense to work in breach of employment legislation.

Hi torblednam,

You are exactly the person I was hoping would respond!

The thing is, with certain roles, and this isn’t spoof because the amounts involved aren’t huge, people are working right across the week because they’re spending a decent portion of their normal working week collecting kids or doing other things as a result of Covid.

I must admit that the OWTA has never had any relevance to my role and, other than when I’m on holidays, I genuinely do some work every day.

The way I'm looking at it (and I'm in the same situation myself regarding spreading work across 7 days (or nights!) of the week this last year) is that the working week is still the 5 day / 40 hour week, just distributed differently, dictated by my personal circumstances / convenience, rather than by my employment itself.

At the end of the day, if a person wants to claim for a 6-day week rather than 5, and boost their claim from €50 to €60, I doubt it's going to result in the splitting of hairs. My reading of the guidance is based on my understanding that a "day" is a full working day, but that's never set out clearly, so it's open to one to interpret (subject to my earlier OWTA comments).

Similarly, as regards your other question of what amount you're actually taking for the utilities, I'd say if you were to do a proper apportionment, the resulting adjustment to a claim, given we're talking about 40% of 10% of some fraction of the difference between two bills which are probably within €40 of each other wouldn't be worth 5 minutes of anyone's time really...

Thanks torblednam.

It’s kind of hard to justify the apportionment on the broadband number. 30% is already an apportionment. I’d say the majority of my broadband use is now work related. So applying a days ratio to 30% is hard to make sense of.

Similarly, I get the idea of 10% for light/heat in the context of a “home office” because it can be used for other things.

But I’m now lighting and heating my house at times when ordinarily I wouldn’t be there. A ratio of days as per the Revenue examples applied to 10% of the utility bills again seems illogical.

On days that I’m working from home, perhaps 66% of light and heat usage is attributable to me working from home. Ordinarily, the house might be empty from, say, 8 until 6. But now I’m there with the heat on, with lights on, with devices on. I understand the logic of 10% for someone with a home office but people are actually using their house as a place of work now.

Been working from home since March but with a handful of days in the office, which I will be able to figure out. So what do I need to do? I am M-F btw. If I did work outside that it wasn’t much so I will stick to the M-F calc.

So I need heating and electric and broadband bills for the relevant time. Do I need to upload the actual bills?

I think 10% is fair and 30% might be an overstatement for me since the kidults use a lot of broadband and I probably use a small electric heater a lot now in the winter but so do the college kids in their rooms.

So the guidance is:

- Work out the bills for 2020
- Work out the number of days worked at home
- Say that’s 180; 180/366 x 10% of Light & Heat plus 180/366 x 30% of Broadband

Is anyone adding the receipts to the tracker app? I have quite a lot so think I will just file them away in case they ever ask for them. I've worked it out to be only about €120 gross.

I didn't overthink it. Just a back of the envelope calculation. About €60. No uploads, it will never be queried anyway.

Gordon Gekko said:

So the guidance is:

- Work out the bills for 2020
- Work out the number of days worked at home
- Say that’s 180; 180/366 x 10% of Light & Heat plus 180/366 x 30% of Broadband

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That's correct. One other point worth mentioning is if their is a Mrs Gordon Gekko then you can both only claim 5% if you choose to split the bill. See example 2 from revenue here. Easier for 1 person to make the claim

michaelm said:

About €60. No uploads, it will never be queried anyway.

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Unlikely to be queried if it is a reasonable amount as you have. Although I don't think revenue would take to kindly to someone trying to claim 30% on their tv and broadband bundle with all the sports and movies included Apportioning the broadband bit (eg. €40/m) would be the better option

Gordon Gekko said:

Thanks torblednam.

It’s kind of hard to justify the apportionment on the broadband number. 30% is already an apportionment. I’d say the majority of my broadband use is now work related. So applying a days ratio to 30% is hard to make sense of.

Similarly, I get the idea of 10% for light/heat in the context of a “home office” because it can be used for other things.

But I’m now lighting and heating my house at times when ordinarily I wouldn’t be there. A ratio of days as per the Revenue examples applied to 10% of the utility bills again seems illogical.

On days that I’m working from home, perhaps 66% of light and heat usage is attributable to me working from home. Ordinarily, the house might be empty from, say, 8 until 6. But now I’m there with the heat on, with lights on, with devices on. I understand the logic of 10% for someone with a home office but people are actually using their house as a place of work now.

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People are free to use whatever basis they choose, to come up with a claim. If you already had broadband in your home under a fixed term contract, then arguably 0% is the cost attributable to WFH. If you had to obtain a new higher bandwidth service to be able to WFH, then arguably 100% of the increased cost is attributable to WFH. At the end of the day, the Revenue example is simply the baseline amount which they're undertaking to not quibble over.

With electricity, a good proportion of a household bill may be fixed charges, which aren't impacted by whether a person is WFH. So if you want to work out an apportionment based on usage, then really it should be based on the units alone, rather than the bill total.

With heating, the incremental cost may vary widely depending on the type of accommodation and heating system involved, and who else is in the house. In my case, for example, my spouse and at least one of my kids have been here most of the time during the day, since I started WFH. The house is A rated and the thermostat is simply set to maintain a constant temperature throughout the day, so in truth there's little or no incremental cost for heating (in my case) directly due to my WFH for 9 months.

All in all, I'd say more money has been spent on extra bog roll and hand soap (not deductible, before anyone asks!) than the actual increase in broadband, light & heat incurred by me in doing my WFH..! Others' situations will of course differ completely, I'm simply giving a perspective. I haven't calculated my claim yet, but whatever it is will certainly more than cover the real cost, and when my reduced commuting cost is taken into account, I'm a long way ahead.

My understanding is that I can make a claim for other expenses exclusively used to work from home. In my case I bought a Desk, Chair and computer monitor which is exclusively used for working from home. I assume after I have calculated the proportion of the household bills I just add these expenses on top?

money_man said:

My understanding is that I can make a claim for other expenses exclusively used to work from home. In my case I bought a Desk, Chair and computer monitor which is exclusively used for working from home. I assume after I have calculated the proportion of the household bills I just add these expenses on top?

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Those are capital items so you might be entitled to some form of wear and tear on them (i.e. over 8 years), but not to expense the cost of their purchase.

money_man said:

My understanding is that I can make a claim for other expenses exclusively used to work from home. In my case I bought a Desk, Chair and computer monitor which is exclusively used for working from home. I assume after I have calculated the proportion of the household bills I just add these expenses on top?

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From the Revenue website on the E-Working relief.

Note

Capital items such as laptops, computers, office equipment and office furniture purchased by you are not allowable costs.

relax carry on said:

From the Revenue website on the E-Working relief.

Note

Capital items such as laptops, computers, office equipment and office furniture purchased by you are not allowable costs.

Remotely working from home

This page outlines what is classed as remotely working from home (eWorking)

www.revenue.ie

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While the cost is not an allowable cost for the purposes of the eworking concession, wear & tear allowances may be due under section 301, which applies section 284 to the context of an office or employment.

There is (or was) a form that can be used to claim for both motor running expenses (s.114) and wear and tear (s.301), but the same principle would apply to anything that could be classed as plant or machinery.

Sorry to hijack but my question is related to WFH tax reclaim. Firstly do bills have to be in your own name to make a claim? We live with my parents, some bills are my name, some my parents and some my wife can I put in a claim for oil bought by my parents, electricity in my wife’s name and BB in my name.

Also for the year 2020 I will be doing a tax return also for self employed work on the side (farming) I was planning to claim a percentage of my BB against this can I claim both WFH under paye and claim again as percentage against my other self employed business? Since none can be 100% claimed the rationale would be 30% against WFH and I think I can claim 50% against the farm so it wouldn’t be double claiming since it’s a different portion of the bill. Thanks.

Out of curiosity I have a "smart plug" that can do energy measurement. I plugged the extension lead into it that feeds my office. It is a laptop, 2 monitors and a printer. They are drawing about 150w of power which based on a unit cost of 20c would be using 3c/hour for my computer equipment. Based on a working year of 240 days that would total €67.50 exclusively for single my office.

We have two office setups at home so in theory we are adding €115 to electricity bill alone for working from home. If we used guideline of 10% of our electricity bill it would €59 credit.

Obviously heating+broadband go on top of that. Not sure I will try to claim that amount as might be more hassle than it's worth but just a pointer that the electricity that can be used is more significant that the guideline

I've been working at home full time since March last year. The difference in energy bills from March 2019 - '20, and '20 - '21 is €160 euro more expensive this year, largely driven by gas / heating costs. Weirdly my electricity actually went down a small bit! Can only attribute that maybe less use of "safety lights" when out of the house, and a swap out of most bulbs to led.

In my view broadband is a misnomer - it's a fixed utility you buy whether you use it for 5% or 95% of the time.

To the people who have worked out their bills & % attributable to WFH - have you made the claim yet? Is anyone's refund >€50?

Digging out my bills at the minute, but after doing a rough calculation (per @Gordon Gekko above), and then multiplying by my marginal tax rate to get the actual tax refund, its not that big/worth the effort.

I changed electricity provider and got a cashback credit during the year - does anyone know if the refund is based on the cost incurred before or after the cashback? (assume the latter since Revenue want to see that bills have been paid).

Mine was 60-something euros refund