Worked from home? Here is how much you can claim from tax

If you are a full-time employee that has worked from home during lockdown for more than six months over the past year, you can claim home-office expenses from tax. 

In order to be eligible to claim for your home office, you will need to meet a few requirements that include:

• You must have spent more than half of your total working hours working from your home office - meaning that if you started working from home at the beginning of the hard lockdown at the end of March 2020, you would have worked at home until the end of September 2020. 
• You must have a dedicated work area - this means that you must have a space set up for work that is primarily used as a workspace so a dining room table is not sufficient. 
• You need a letter from your employer confirming that you have been working from home and the percentage of time you spent at the home office

If you meet these requirements, you can claim rent or interest on your bond, repairs to the premises, rates and taxes, water and electricity, cleaning, data usage, wear and tear of office equipment, and all other expenses relating to your house only.

The same requirements do not apply to sole proprietors or freelancers, It is also vital that you add these claims to your tax return as it is will not be added in the automatic assessment done by SARS. 

TaxTim has designed an online calculator that will help you calculate the home office expense you can claim on your tax return.

Credit: MyProperty Newsletter - 14 April 2021