Employees can claim costs incurred in the home office. Office items, telecommunications and the domestic office can therefore be deducted from the tax.
Assert home office costs
More people have been working in the home office since Corona pandemic. Working at home is associated with many freedom and convenience for the employee, but there are also additional costs.
Through working in your own home, you can save at taxes. Sigurd Warschkow from the Wage Tax Aid Association for employees tells in an interview with FOCUS: “It is often forgotten that a tax bonus of up to 1,250 euros a year could be picked up.”
Disconnect the office room from the tax
The home office can be worthwhile for the employee. Because working laptops and office rooms can also be claimed for tax purposes. With a laptop or stand PC, however, the tax benefits are limited.
If the laptop also serves for private use, a maximum of 50 percent of the purchase price can be deducted monthly as advertising costs. If the device has a new value of over 925 euros, it must also be written off over three years.
The tax advantages of the home office are more lucrative. “If the employer proves the work in the home office and close the company’s office building because of the coronavirus, the employee no longer has any job, [so lassen sich] make the costs of the home office for tax purposes […]”, according to Nöll.
The amount is proportionately based on the warm rent if it is a completed study. The following would then arise in a calculation example: Assuming the warm rent of a 100 square meter apartment is 1,000 euros per month and the study has 20 square meters, then 400 euros can be claimed for two months in the home office.
However, this only works if the office mainly acts as such. If work is made in the living room or at the dining table, the tax reduction is much more complicated.
But here too, the maximum annual advertising costs cannot exceed the amount of 1,250 euros.
Henry Ely Ely / Redaktion Finanzen.net