working from home tax credit?

DB74 said:
I would just like to throw a small spanner in the works here, forthose who plan to claim this creidt AND who have been receiving the TWSS

Anyone who has been receiving the TWSS from their employer will most likely have a (potentially significant) personal tax liability for the 2020 tax year. This is due to the fact that the TWSS was paid to employees without deduction of any payroll taxes

In my opinion, Revenue will not seek to chase this money unless the taxpayer in question actively submits a tax return for the 2020 tax year voluntarily. I think the political fallout from such a move will not be worth the hassle

In the vast majority of situations, the tax liability on the TWSS will far exceed any tax relief available via the working-from-home tax credit so it may be more worthwhile in NOT claiming this credit. The same logic may even apply to claiming tax relief on medical expenses etc

This obviously doesn't affect people who already have to submit a tax return (eg company directors, people with rental income etc) but for the ordinary PAYE taxpayer with no other income it is worth considering

Now obviously Revenue may insist that they want a tax return from everyone who has received the TWSS but I personally think it's unlikely
Click to expand...
I was thinking along the same lines but Revenue have said they will adjust credits from 2022 to recoup any tax owed and may spread this adjustment over 4 years so it looks like they do intend to collect any outstanding taxes.
 
jim said:
Thanks for the info in this thread. Can i just clarify...if ones employer doesnt do the €3.20 thimg then you can claim against your own income tax bill. How do you calculate how much you can claim? Is it that you estimate size of office versus rest of house? Then apportion which bills?(electricity, heat, bbroadband)? And further apportion by number of days in the yr worked from home?

How does revenue challenge this? How do they assess reasonableness of office size?

Example:
Office is 20% of house.
Annual electricty and bb is say €1600
Wfh 170 days in yr
Claim = 170/365X1600X0.2=€149

Is this correct in theory?
Click to expand...

From citizens information:

Example
Mary works from home for 6 months while her office is closed due to the COVID-19 emergency. During that 6 months her household bills for heating, electricity and broadband come to €1000. At the end of the year she can claim tax back on expenses of €100 (10% of €1000).
The amount she gets back depends on her rate of tax. If she pays tax at the higher tax rate of 40% she will get €40 back from her taxes (40% of €100). If she pays tax at the lower rate of 20%, she will receive €20 back (20% of €100).
 
I'll be claiming back the full cost of the electricity usage increase compared to same time last year. My bill has doubled so I'll be claiming 50% of the bill.
 
Tickle said:
I'll be claiming back the full cost of the electricity usage increase compared to same time last year. My bill has doubled so I'll be claiming 50% of the bill.
Click to expand...

Your situation seems remarkable.

You said earlier in the thread that you have been working 2 days per week at home for a year or more pre-Covid.

Now you're saying your electricity usage has doubled this year, by virtue of you working an extra 3 days a week from home (assuming you work a 5 day week).

Unless my arithmetic is letting me down (and assuming you're holding constant your personal domestic electricity cost between both years), this means that you use as much electricity in EACH day of working from home, as you do in the whole week for personal domestic use. What's your job, a bitcoin miner?!
 
Tickle said:
I'll be claiming back the full cost of the electricity usage increase compared to same time last year. My bill has doubled so I'll be claiming 50% of the bill.
Click to expand...

Claiming does not mean successfully obtaining a refund on the amount you submit. Be prepared to be disappointed.
 
torblednam said:
Your situation seems remarkable.

You said earlier in the thread that you have been working 2 days per week at home for a year or more pre-Covid.

Now you're saying your electricity usage has doubled this year, by virtue of you working an extra 3 days a week from home (assuming you work a 5 day week).

Unless my arithmetic is letting me down (and assuming you're holding constant your personal domestic electricity cost between both years), this means that you use as much electricity in EACH day of working from home, as you do in the whole week for personal domestic use. What's your job, a bitcoin miner?!
Click to expand...
Yeah it all adds up. 5 days working from home is 2.5 times as much as 2 days so it's very easy to see how the consumption can be 2 times as much as before. I'd have equipment and lights on for work Monday-Friday and they would consume way more electricity than the base load for my house. On the weekend only a fraction of the electricity would be used (as equipment and lights would be turned off). I don't know why that is so hard to believe, but I've got the bills here in front of me which are telling me that the actual consumption has doubled.

You are assuming that all 7 days would have the same amount of electricity consumed each day, but honestly I'd say 80 or 90% could be used Monday-Friday when I have equipment on for around 45 hours and during the weekend the equipment would be off and I'd use next to nothing by comparison.

relax carry on said:
Claiming does not mean successfully obtaining a refund on the amount you submit. Be prepared to be disappointed.
Click to expand...
I'll let you know how I get on. I'm prepared to submit my claim and my records to justify said claim.
 
Tickle said:
Yeah it all adds up. 5 days working from home is 2.5 times as much as 2 days so it's very easy to see how the consumption can be 2 times as much as before. I'd have equipment and lights on for work Monday-Friday and they would consume way more electricity than the base load for my house. On the weekend only a fraction of the electricity would be used (as equipment and lights would be turned off). I don't know why that is so hard to believe, but I've got the bills here in front of me which are telling me that the actual consumption has doubled.

You are assuming that all 7 days would have the same amount of electricity consumed each day, but honestly I'd say 80 or 90% could be used Monday-Friday when I have equipment on for around 45 hours and during the weekend the equipment would be off and I'd use next to nothing by comparison.
Click to expand...

What kind of equipment?! Do you have 1kw light bulbs in your work area or something?

A computer, a monitor and some light bulbs will probably run to about 1 - 1.5 units per working day, combined. Look at the wattage on them if you don't believe me.

The majority of the electricity consumed in your house will be by appliances unrelated to working from home, electric shower, immersion, oven, hob, microwave, washing machine, dishwasher, tumble dryer, hairdryer. All of these use exponentially more power than a couple of light bulbs and a computer. And you will almost certainly have used a number of them much more frequently due to working from home. But that consumption is not in the course of your work, and it's not tax deductible. An average fridge freezer alone probably uses about as much electricity as your working from home would.

Is your heating also running on electricity, by the way?

And finally, has your tariff increased since last year? I got caught with a huge increase earlier this year because my discounted rate had ended and I had to switch in order to stop my bill from going up by ~25%.
 
Last edited:
aristotle said:
We run the gas off the electricity and the electricity off the gas and we save two hundred pounds a year.
Click to expand...

Huh?! o_O

I presume you're just having a bit of Friday night banter, but I meant like storage heaters, or a heat pump that runs on electricity... (although if Tickle has a heat pump they're surely in a well insulated house that won't have had the heating on much / at all during the day since March anyway...)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top