Obtaining reduction in taxes: Using home for work.

[network_engineer]

Hi all,

Can somebody advise me on this: I have a normal employee contract with my employer; however, I tend to use my home quite a lot for my work purposes, which in turn involves the use of network equipment and servers etc. for both testing and training purposes. Now, I am wondering, is there any possibility to get a reduction on taxes for using my premises and particularly if I can get some form reduction in taxes for the amount of electricity I consume?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Kind regards.

PS: Yeah, I am a geek, have a lot of machines, say starting from a Sun Enterprise 450 to an Ultra 1 and about 5 Cisco routers, 2 firewalls, NAS servers etc.

[sinikala]

I think your first port of call is not with the taxman but with your employer to get some kind compensation for you using your home infrastructure for work purposes.

E.g. we have a 100Mbps connection / WiFi at home, which both my wife and I use to do work at home (company laptops). My wife's employers pay some nominal amount (€10 / month?), my employers don't (AFAIK).

[Mook]

You can get a home office allowance (deduction) from vero, but it's not very much

[sinikala]

You can get a home office allowance (deduction) from vero, but it's not very much

That's surely only if you are self-employed? If your income is from an employer, then they provide the place of work, otherwise we could all set up "home offices" and get a bit knocked off our tax. Now if he does some work on the side, e.g. as a consultant using his home as an office, then he would presumably be able to claim.

[Mook]

If the taxpayer gives no details proving otherwise, the workroom deduction is granted as follows:
1) If your employer has not arranged for any office space for you, and you use your own workroom/office
for your main occupation (e.g. if you are a freelance newspaper editor) €680.
2) If you use your own workroom/office on a part-time basis to generate income relating to your main
occupation or alternatively to your sideline occupation (e.g. teachers, housing-company superintendents)
€340.
3) If you use your own workroom/office for sideline work of temporary nature €170.
If two spouses utilize a workroom/office on a part-time basis for purposes relating to their main or
sideline occupations, the total amount of workroom deduction is €510.

http://www.vero.fi/nc/doc/download.asp?id=3758;129816

[Pursuivant]

so in other words of Finnish: if you have an office and still work from home, keep on masturbating

[Mook]

so in other words of Finnish: if you have an office and still work from home, keep on masturbating

and if you need special clothing for the masturbation, which is not provided by your employer, you can claim for that too!

Anyhow, I do know some people that managed to get the home office thing, but they had hot-desking at work with not enough desks for everyone (because insultants should really be out insulting rather than sitting on their arses)

[Pursuivant]

but did the employer provide some note stating the "hot desking"? I find the GHA tax offices being very much in the "you wish" category - it depends on the profession as teachers traditionally have received such a deduction.

[Mook]

Probably. but it's easy to get this sort of thing from your employer, right?