Office closure, WFH reimbursement

[Guest2]

Our head office is closing in October as the company had a chance to pull out the lease.
Many people work from home including myself, so it seemed pointless to keep the office open that can seat 170 a day when ~20/day usually go in.
With the electric rates going through the roof, my plan was to go into the office to work through the winter months instead of landing a £300/month electric bill.

This is now not possible as its closing. Do we have any case to claim daily electricity usage for laptop and two monitors on 8 hours a day?

 

[Guest2]

Thanks all. I do / can walk to work, im city central so its a 10-15 min walk.
Yes, at the moment I choose to work from home but do have the option of going in. In future, I will not.

I have claimed through a company called TaxReturned last year and managed to get ~£130 which wasnt too bad. Yes, they took a fee but wasnt too bothered as let them sort it all. I checked with HMRC they were legit first, which they are.
It doesnt take into account electric usage though and forms had nothing about being able (or not) to go into an office. I would like some heating at home in winter instead of working in 13c in hat and gloves!

 

[Guest2]

It's literally a 2-minute online form to claim the tax relief from HMRC directly. You got ripped off.

Claim tax relief for your job expenses

Claiming tax relief on expenses you have to pay for your work, like uniforms, tools, travel and working from home costs.

www.gov.uk

Is that a self assessment or this simple form? - https://www.tax.service.gov.uk/claim-tax-refund/which-tax-year
On the list of benefits here - https://www.gov.uk/income-tax/taxfree-and-taxable-state-benefits I see 'Winter Fuel Payments and Christmas Bonus' But nothing about fuel payments or xmas bonus on the claim form. I've had a xmas bonus for years now and it has always been taxed. Probably over 1k worth of xmas bonus tax alone

 

[Guest2]

Putting it bluntly... tough ****. You could make a request to your employer for additional expenses to cover the WFH costs, but that's about the only avenue you have available.

Are you sure?
A simple search finds this - https://www.gov.uk/tax-relief-for-employees/working-at-home


You may be able to claim tax relief for:

• gas and electricity
• metered water
• business phone calls, including dial-up internet access

The exact amount of extra costs you’ve incurred above the weekly amount - you’ll need evidence such as receipts, bills or contracts

To me it sounds like it's possible, but time consuming if you don't know what you are doing. I can see why many MPs get numerous expenses - they know the loopholes and what can/cannot be claimed

 

[Guest2]

Business closes office due to employees all WFH so now employees want compensated as they can't use office they weren't using in first place?

There always were people WFH pre Covid, but since Covid less and less people have been going into the office, mainly people who want to escape kids/family at home
I would have thought it easily do-able for a business that was shelling out thousands a week on office space to re-emburse staff who have to use their own home to work. Hell, even paying every staff member £50 a month towards electric would be cheaper then renting the office space! It was something like 20k a month from memory

 

[Guest2]

Whether you agree with it or not, there is a tax allowance for working from home. I see no reason at all to not legitmately claim for something that the Government has made available They've already changed the policy so that only workers who are forced to work from home can claim for it though.

If I started a new job that was advertised as a "remote role", I wouldn't expect to be able to claim. But in this instance (and the case for the OP) my office was my formal workplace and the business decided to close it and forced me into a remote working option. Arguably this is no different to the tax benefits you can receive from being forced to buy uniform for work, tax benefits on petrol / mileage expenses etc either.

I agree, people may/may not agree with it but the fact is now i'm permenatantly working from home my midday electric usage is going to go up. Not so much now / summer but in winter because of heating from 8am-4pm mon-fri.
Broadband I already had for personal use (like now) its the same line so cant claim on that I expect but certainly heating is going to be a big one.

Running aircon and heating in an ~8300 sq f office must cost (have costed) a fair wack!