The increasing flexibility of our working world over the last few years means that your home is becoming your office. We explain how you can claim your work from home for tax purposes.
Content
- Home office lump sum or separate study?
- What are the requirements for a study?
- Deductible costs of a study
- The home office lump sum: working from home without a separate study
- How to enter the costs in the Taxfix app
Home office lump sum or separate study?
When filing your tax return, it is important to clarify how you work at home.
If you have set up your workplace at home at the kitchen table, in the living room or on the couch, you can claim your work from home for tax purposes with the home office lump sum (Home-Office-Pauschale) introduced in 2020. This means: Regardless of whether there was a study or not, € 5 per day or from the tax year 2023, €6 per day can be deducted as income-related expenses for the days on which work was done from home.
The concept of a study, on the other hand, is subject to clear conditions and strict requirements. As a rule, this has to be a separate room in the flat or house that is only used for working. A corner in the living room or a children's room that has been converted at short notice is usually not sufficient. It is also not enough to separate an area with curtains either.
Those who want to claim the study in their tax return are usually asked by the tax office to fill out a questionnaire on the home office and submit it in addition. Since the Corona pandemic, many people work from home and try to deduct private rooms as workrooms. The tax office therefore looks very closely. If there are doubts about the existence of a study, the tax office may visit. However, this rarely happens. The tax office may also ask you to submit the floor plan of the flat or the rental agreement in order to check the deductibility of the workroom.
To make sure you're on the safe side, we'll explain below exactly which requirements apply, which costs you can deduct and how you can declare the study or the home office lump sum in the Taxfix app.
The good news first: Our app helps you determine your situation with an easy-to-understand series of questions. It lists the deductible items and automatically takes into account possible lump sums and deductible limits. We explain exactly how this works below.
By the way: Students can also deduct the costs of studying at home. You can find more information in this article.
What are the requirements for a study?
Separate study within your own four walls
Your study must belong to your private flat or house. It must also be separated from other rooms by a lockable door. The room may be located in the cellar or attic, as long as it forms a unit with your flat or house. A simple work corner in the living room is unfortunately not sufficient. Only then can you deduct it as a study and thus your costs.
In addition, there should be at least one other room available for private purposes for each occupant of your flat. Only then is it possible to declare a study in your tax return.
Professional use
You must use your study for your professional activity. Private use is excluded. If you write private emails once in a while, that's fine. However, if you pursue your hobbies in your study or receive visitors (recognisable, for example, by a bed), the professional use is questioned. You may spend no more than 10% of your time in the study for private purposes. If you exceed this share, no tax deduction is possible at all. There are no pro-rata solutions here either.
The employer does not provide another workplace
Until 2022, the following applied: If your employer does not provide you with a workplace and you do part of your work at home, the deductible costs for your study are limited to €1,250 per year.
From the 2023 tax year, it will no longer be decisive whether you have another workplace in order to deduct the costs of a home office. The key factor now is whether the home office is the main place of work. If this is the case, taxpayers can choose whether to declare the actual costs or use a lump sum of €1,260 per year. This change simplifies the tax treatment and focuses on the professional use of the home office.
This applies to teachers, for example. They teach at school, but have to prepare lessons and correct exams at home, because they do not have their own desk or office at school for these tasks. Or field workers who are mainly on site with customers and therefore do not have an office at their employer's premises and therefore have to use their study for certain tasks.
The Taxfix app recognises whether the maximum limit of €1,250 or €1,260 from 2023 applies to you and automatically takes it into account. Below we show you when this is the case.
Centre of professional activity
If you would like to deduct more than €1,250 or €1,260 (from 2023) per year, you must have your entire centre of work in your home office. This means that you use your study for all professional activities and do not have a workplace provided by your employer. This is the case, for example, for home workers or writers.
The advantage of this is that the expenses may be submitted in the tax return without limitation and on a pro rata basis for the area that the study makes up of the entire flat.
Deductible costs of a study
The following costs are tax-deductible on a pro-rata basis:
- Rent
- Water, heating and electricity costs
- Cleaning costs
- Costs for furnishing the study
- Repair costs
- Insurance
- Interest on loans (for property)
- Property tax
- Building depreciation (for property)
The deductible cost share is calculated based on the size of the study. The Taxfix app therefore asks for the size of the study and the entire flat and calculates the cost share automatically.
Costs for furnishing the study can be stated in full:
- Office furniture
- Carpet
- Lamps
- Curtains
Note that for purchased items such as work equipment, depreciation applies. This point is also taken into account by the Taxfix app.
If your study is not recognised by the tax office, you may declare expenses such as office furniture, computers, office supplies, etc. as work equipment.
Observe proportionality
A new Apple MacBook Pro as a work computer is okay. But a crystal lamp for the ceiling of a study does not seem proportionate. Unfortunately, the tax office does not accept luxury items or decoration. The tax office likes to cancel such items or even completely doubts the existence of a study.
The home office lump sum: working from home without a separate study
Since 2020, you can claim your work from home for tax purposes even if you do not have a separate study. The home office flat rate was introduced for this purpose. This counts as income-related expenses and amounts to €5 or, since 2023, €6 per day that you work at home, but for a maximum of 120 days or 210 days (as of 2023) per year. This means that you can claim an amount of up to €600.
The advantage of the home office lump sum is that you do not have to submit evidence of the costs.
Note that these costs only affect your tax refund if you exceed the employee lump sum of €1,230 (Werbungskostenpauschale). You can read more about what this means here.
How to enter the costs in the Taxfix app
You can enter the costs for your home office work in the category "Job".
Simply answer the question "Did you work from any of these places in 20XX?" with "From home". Then you have the option of entering the costs for your work at home.
Our app differentiates between whether a home office was used or not:
Declaring the room costs for a working room
- Answer the question "Did you work in these places in 20XX?" with "Room costs for study" to record the costs for a separate study
- If the requirements for a study are met, you can enter the expenses for this in the following question. Please specify the type of costs there and then enter the costs attributable to the study for the entire year.
- Our app then queries all tax-relevant costs for your home office and, where necessary, calculates them proportionately based on the size of the apartment/house and home office.
- If the home office is not deductible, the app takes the home office flat rate into account
Declaring of the home office lump sum
- If you answer "Home office flat-rate" to the question "What costs would you like to declare for working from home?", this will be included in your declaration.
- To do this, simply enter the number of days in the home office. The app will automatically calculate and take the lum sum into account for you.
🚨 As a student, you may have to enter your home office costs differently in the Taxfix app. We explain how to do this here.
Also take your home office work into account when entering your commute
In the category "Job", you will first be asked for your income tax certificate. This is followed by questions about your commute and working days. Please enter the number of days you worked from home.
If you worked entirely from home in the tax year and had no travelling expenses, select the option "from home" when asked about your commute to work. In this case, the app will not ask you to enter your commute.
How to declare home office work to the Expert Service
With the Expert Service, you enter the costs of your work from home at your place of work.
Entering the room costs for a study
You can enter the room costs for your study by ticking the answer option "Extra study" for the question "Where did you work at home?". Then enter the details of the room, such as room size or rent. For the topic "Workplace", you will be asked specifically about the furnishings (e.g. desk, office chair).
As soon as you have entered all the relevant information for the expert, a list of your personal tasks will appear.
Specifying the home office flat rate
To use the home office flat rate, simply answer the question "Where did you work at home?" with "Other room" and then enter the number of days you worked from home (max. 210 days).