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What are the conditions to qualify as an E-Worker?
To qualify as an e-worker, for the purposes of claiming tax relief on expenses incurred due to working from home, the following conditions must be met:
- There must be a formal agreement in place between you and your employer requiring you to work from home. E-working allowance does not extend to employees who choose to bring some work home in the evening or at weekends;
- You must be required to perform “substantive duties” of the employment at home;
- Yu must be required to work for “substantial periods” at home.
E-Workers will incur certain expenditure in the performance of their duties from home, such as additional heating, electricity, mobile and broadband costs. Revenue will allow your employer to make tax free e-worker allowance payments up to €3.20 per day to you if you satisfy the above conditions to cover some of these additional costs.
Who is eligible to claim E-Worker Expenses?
Where your employer does not pay you a daily tax-free allowance as an e-worker, you are not entitled to claim a round sum expense of €3.20 per day. However, you can claim a deduction for expenses incurred ‘wholly, exclusively and necessarily in the performance of the duties’ of your employment.
Your employer is not obligated to pay you the full tax-free allowance of €3.20 per day. For example, they might decide to only pay you a tax-free amount of €2.10 per day or they may not pay an allowance at all. However, there is good news. In each of these cases, if your actual household utility expenses exceed the tax-free amount paid by your employer, you can claim the excess as an e-worker expense.
E-worker expenses reduce your taxable income by the amount of the expense in excess of the tax-free allowance. So if you are paying tax at the 20% rate, you will be entitled to a refund of 20% of the excess. Likewise, if you are paying tax at the 40%, you will be entitled to a tax refund of 40% of the excess.
Example:
Your employer does not pay you any e-worker allowance. You have an annual electricity bill for your home of €950 and broadband bills of €600. Revenue allow you to claim 10% of your household utility bills and 30% of your home broadband bills as an e-worker expense (€275 – which is then apportioned to a percentage of the days you worked from home). The tax relief on allowable e-working expenses of €275 would give a maximum refund of €110 a year.
What if my home utility and broadband bills are shared?
Where bills are shared between two or more people, the cost can be apportioned based on the amount paid by each individual.
What if my employer provides me with a computer?
If your employer provides you with a computer (or a printer etc.) to work from home with, you will not be charged benefit-in-kind on this as long as personal use is minimal. That being said, as you did not incur a cost in obtaining the computer, you cannot claim any expenses for it either.
How do I claim a tax rebate for E-Worker Expenses?
To claim a tax rebate for E-Worker Expenses, just fill in our Full Review Form. This form will provide us with the details necessary to claim the tax rebate for E-Worker Expenses, along with any additional tax credits you might be due for the last 4 years.
Alternatively, you can fill out our Quick Review Form, and contact us upon completion informing us of the tax credit(s) you are looking to claim.
If you are not entitled to a tax rebate for E-Worker Expenses, but would still like us to review your taxes, just complete our 50-second Quick Review Form.
