Are you a full-time employee residing in Port Elizabeth who embraced remote work during the lockdown? If you’ve clocked more than six months of work-from-home time over the past year, there’s a potential opportunity to optimize your tax return by claiming substantial home-office expenses.
To unlock these benefits, you must satisfy specific eligibility criteria:
- Working More Than Half of Your Total Hours from Home: If you transitioned to remote work around the commencement of the lockdown in March 2020 and continued until the conclusion of September 2020, chances are you meet this criterion.
- Establishing a Dedicated Workspace: It’s imperative to designate a dedicated area within your home for work purposes. A mere dining room setup won’t suffice; you need a space exclusively utilized for work-related activities.
- Securing Employer Confirmation: Obtain a formal letter from your employer affirming your work-from-home arrangement and specifying the proportion of time spent operating from your home office.
Meeting these conditions enables you to assert various expenses on your tax return, encompassing rent or bond interest, premises maintenance, rates and taxes, utility bills, cleaning services, data consumption, equipment depreciation, and other pertinent household expenditures.
Sole proprietors or freelancers have distinct prerequisites for claiming home-office expenses. Additionally, remember to manually include these claims in your tax return, as they won’t be automatically factored into SARS’ assessment.
TaxTim extends a convenient online calculator tailored to assist you in determining the quantum of home-office expenses you’re eligible to claim on your tax return.
Seize the opportunity to optimize your tax returns by capitalizing on the advantages of remote work in Port Elizabeth. Initiate the process of computing your claimable amount today!
