Motoring expense claim for Teleworkers

coolguy11

Hi,

My friend is a teleworker. He has a home office where he carries out his duties day to day. Once or twice a week he needs to go to his head office to attend meeting etc...

Can he claim motoring expense with Revenue for such travel. He does not get any allowance or claim from his employer for these trips.

He uses his personal broadband for teleworking, is there any claim for such costs.

Any advice would be helpful...

Delancey

I doubt he could claim travel costs from Revenue - really should be sorted out with his employer.
Claiming for things like broadband is a double-edged sword - yes , he can claim but revenue can claim that when he sells his house ( this presumes he owns his house ) that because it is used for business then it is not fully covered by the Capital gains Tax ememption on profits from the sale of the Principal Private Residence.
Typically people working from home claim 20% of costs as a business expense but this may mean revenue will say that 20% of any profit on a sale ( unlikley though this is ) is subject to CGT.

coolguy11

Thanks Delancey.

My friend lives in a rented home. He has been to Revenue office today to check with them. The staff who dealt with him was very rude!. She asked him to get a letter form his employer explaining why this person is working form home etc etc... Is this correct or whats the process to do such claims.

Irish_Elect_Eng

coolguy11 wrote: »

Hi,

My friend is a teleworker. He has a home office where he carries out his duties day to day. Once or twice a week he needs to go to his head office to attend meeting etc...

Can he claim motoring expense with Revenue for such travel. He does not get any allowance or claim from his employer for these trips.

He uses his personal broadband for teleworking, is there any claim for such costs.

Any advice would be helpful...

Few if any companies pay workers mileage to drive to work, which is what your friend does on the days that he attends meetings at his head office. Where an employee lives is their decision not their employers and as such the employer will rarely pay for such travel.

In relation to the broadband, would your friend have broad-band if he did not have this job? Almost certainly, so he would be trying to claim a personal expense not directly incurred by his job.

It is highly understandable that his employer will not pay for these.

In relation to tax breaks, none are available for these items.

And if they were most of the country would claim them as most drive to work and many work from home occasionally and some use their home PC/BB for work occasionally.

Stheno

Delancey wrote: »

I doubt he could claim travel costs from Revenue - really should be sorted out with his employer.
Claiming for things like broadband is a double-edged sword - yes , he can claim but revenue can claim that when he sells his house ( this presumes he owns his house ) that because it is used for business then it is not fully covered by the Capital gains Tax ememption on profits from the sale of the Principal Private Residence.
Typically people working from home claim 20% of costs as a business expense but this may mean revenue will say that 20% of any profit on a sale ( unlikley though this is ) is subject to CGT.

See the link below, your information is incorrect

Irish_Elect_Eng wrote: »

Few if any companies pay workers mileage to drive to work, which is what your friend does on the days that he attends meetings at his head office. Where an employee lives is their decision not their employers and as such the employer will rarely pay for such travel.

In relation to the broadband, would your friend have broad-band if he did not have this job? Almost certainly, so he would be trying to claim a personal expense not directly incurred by his job.

It is highly understandable that his employer will not pay for these.

In relation to tax breaks, none are available for these items.

And if they were most of the country would claim them as most drive to work and many work from home occasionally and some use their home PC/BB for work occasionally.

Employers can provvide a daily allowance of €3.20 to cover expenses without an employee incurring tax or CGT on this for working from home.


See http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/money_and_tax/tax/income_tax_credits_and_reliefs/employment_tax_credits_and_reliefs.html

Mileage is different those classed as "mobile" workers who may intermittently be based in the companys office are not always entitled to mileage if working from home

leeroybrown

To my knowledge the only Revenue claims that an ordinary PAYE worker can make regarding tele-working are BIK write downs. This means that if an employer chooses to pay for a tele-commuting employee's broadband and telephone or give them equipment the benefit in kind tax that would normally be charged is waived. This is quite likely what the Revenue thought the letter was for.

A self-employed person has far more leeway to do tax write downs but as pointed out above they do need to be quite careful about encumbering properties, etc.