Revenue - claiming working from home allowance

tixati · 12-01-2022 4:30pm #1

Hi all. Please accept my apologies if I'm asking questions you've answered dozens of times already. My brain is absolutely fried and I need help.

I've never claimed any working from home expenses from Revenue before and I'm really confused. At this stage I'm probably overthinking this in a big way. I started WFH in 2020 and know how many working days I did until the end of the year. To start with something simple that didn't change at all, I'm trying to do broadband first. For tidiness sake, I'm using 1st April 2020 as my start date. I worked 160 days in 2020 and the broadband was €45 per month.

If I go by the guidance on the Revenue website I will multiply €45 x 9 months, then multiply that by the 160 working days, divide by 366 and finally work out the allowable cost. That part seems to be pretty straightforward.

What I can't figure out from the Revenue website is what they're looking for on the receipts tracker. Do they want a monthly breakdown or a simple end-of-year summary? I've seen the guidance where I'm supposed to add up what I paid during the year etc.

Do they want me to upload the pdfs of the 9 broadband bills I received after I started working from home?
What does Date of Expense mean? Is it the issue date on the broadband bill or when the direct debit came out of my bank account?
What's the difference between Total of Bill and Amount Paid?
Are they looking for a monthly breakdown of my broadband bill? Do they want me to go through each month and work out how many days I can claim for? i.e. a €45 broadband bill is €1.45 per day and if I work 20 days in a given month, that's €29.

Please help

Ljmscooter · 12-01-2022 4:33pm

I started doing this for 2020 a few weeks back,

gathers my gas, lecky and virgin bills ,

my calculations for the years 2020 , made it not worth the actual effort, you get feck all back.

also , I think the receipts tracker module is now gone from m revenue/myaccount, so you can no longer upload, ( saw this the other day submitting my med2's fro 2021

tixati · 12-01-2022 4:38pm

I'm starting to regret starting this as well and will probably just burn the lot in the fire later on. So much for this supposedly being easy

Atlantic Dawn · 12-01-2022 4:45pm

It's so much hassle for so little and if you make a mild balls of it and get auditted it could be one big mess.

tixati · 12-01-2022 4:48pm

So has anybody here actually made a claim?

Just Some Young Lad · 12-01-2022 5:14pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058227496/revenue-claiming-working-from-home-allowance

If you have the 9 bills in PDF format then yes, it would be easiest to just upload them to their website, then you don't need to keep them on file for the 6 years after.

Date of expense - I use this as the date that I incurred the expense (date the DD leaves your account).

Total of bill is the entire cost of the service. Amount paid is the value paid by the individual. If I split the bills with my partner and they pay half of the broadband then I would only be able to claim for half the amount of the total bill.

Your calculations question can be answered by looking up the official revenue documentation - found here: https://www.revenue.ie/en/jobs-and-pensions/eworking/how-to-calculate-allowable-remote-working-costs.aspx

If your monthly bill is a bundle with a breakdown provided then yes, they would like to see that breakdown. If not, then they are willing to accept a reasonable amount of the bill is gone to broadband. For example, my bundle costs €89 a month, includes TV, landline, and broadband. I have set the unofficial breakdown as €40 for bb, €40 for TV and €9 for the landline. I have gigabit broadband so that is a very reasonable price considering the speed.

I hope that helps :)

tixati · 12-01-2022 5:23pm

I'm paying all these bills by myself, which is why I'd like to claim something back if I can. I don't care if it's not a lot - anything that will reduce the sting of the heating and petrol bills will be appreciated.

What my fried head still isn't sure about is how I submit the claim. Do I do all of 2020 in one go and upload all the bills? Or do I do it monthly?

Sleepy · 12-01-2022 5:37pm

I just got my refund for 2021 yesterday - didn't bother uploading the documents as the providers have to keep them on-file anyway and if queried I can simply log in to get them. Was actually shocked at how quickly they processed it. Your mileage may vary but based on a year of standard broadband charges and admittedly high energy costs for electricity and gas (old house) it was well worth putting in for... got a little over €130 for 10 minutes of totting up charges on the energia website and submitting it via the Revenue Online Service when doing my annual Med 1 claim.

tixati · 12-01-2022 5:41pm

So did you just tot up your 2021 expenses and put in one claim? That is what I can't figure out. Like I said, my head is fried :-(

L1011 · 12-01-2022 5:44pm

You put in one claim per year

What's allowable is a tenth of the energy costs and three tenths of the broadband cost, divided by 365, multiplied by the number of work from home days

If you're sharing bills, you have to divide by whatever share you have - I don't wfh but my partner does, bills are 50/50 so can only claim half of the pittance in the first place. Wouldn't get away with pretending they pay the lot if audited as the bills are in my name!

Its absolutely bugger all unless you wfh full time and have huge bills.

Shlippery · 12-01-2022 5:47pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118462829#Comment_118462829

Yea, I thought it was pretty straight forward and got it paid into the account in a week. (~€50, but rather it in my pocket)!

Download bills for each month, add up the elec + heating (divide total by 2 if you shared bills with someone) and add all the bills for internet and put that figure in. Third box is for the 'remote days worked' which you can find probably calculate handy enough taking away public holidays / annual leave.

Sleepy · 12-01-2022 6:13pm

No need to do any calculations beyond working out the totals of your electricity and heating bills, the total of your broadband bills and the number of days you worked remotely (I've been wfh full-time since the first Covid lockdown so for me it was a simple calculation to work out my total WFH days:

261 calendar working days (M-F)

- 9 Bank Holidays

- 22 Days Annual Leave Taken (I carried a few into 2022)

= 230 Days worked from home.

TimHorton · 13-01-2022 10:05am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118463010#Comment_118463010

And exactly how much did you get back?

Sleepy · 13-01-2022 10:10am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118465878#Comment_118465878

As above - just over €130.

danoriordan1402 · 13-01-2022 10:23am

Same here, got back around 150 for about 15mins work. Turnaround is fast and from submitting the claim to money in the bank account was 4 working days. If they need the full copy of the bills I can just download the pdfs as required. Better in my pocket than revenues....

tixati · 19-01-2022 12:45pm

I thought I'd pop back in to say thanks. Because of the help I got in this thread, I'm €120 better off. Getting all the bills together and adding up how many days I worked took a bit of time but I believe it was worth it. Thanks again.

Shlippery · 19-01-2022 3:28pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118499184#Comment_118499184

Brilliant! Better outcome than chucking it all into the fire! :)

noonand · 23-02-2022 2:42pm

Was anyone that claimed this allowance asked at any point to verify their WFH days? E.g. by means of letter from your employer on headed paper or similar. Or is it just taken on good faith?

tixati · 27-03-2022 9:40pm

Hi, I've only just logged in and seen the notification for your question. I got my 2020 and 2021 money without being asked for anything from my employer. I didn't even have all my paperwork uploaded before the money was transferred into my bank a/c.

Revenue - claiming working from home allowance

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