Tax tip: Home office flat rate and office hours

Working from home has become more attractive for tax purposes this year. Regardless of whether there is a home office and whether the home office is the centre of the entire activity, the taxpayer can now claim a daily allowance of 6 euros for each calendar day, up to a maximum of 1,260 euros per calendar year, as income-related expenses.

The Federal Ministry of Finance commented on the new regulations in a letter dated 15 August. According to this, the daily allowance is only to be taken into account as income-related expenses if the taxpayer predominantly carries out their professional activity in their home on the calendar day and does not travel to the office where they have a workplace on this day. The taxpayer works predominantly at home if he spends more than half of the day's actual working hours at home. This also applies if they have an appointment away from home that day. They can then also deduct travelling expenses. Normally, only either the home office allowance or the cost of travelling to the office can be declared, not both.

The taxpayer must keep a record of the working days on which the conditions for claiming the daily allowance are met.  However, it can only be claimed once per day, even if the taxpayer performs several activities on the same day, for example as an employee and part-time worker.  To simplify matters, the taxpayer can only allocate the daily allowance to one activity.

The situation is different if the taxpayer has no other workplace available, as is the case for teachers, for example. They can also claim the daily allowance if the work at home does not predominate in terms of time.

Overall, the trend in many companies is moving back towards working from home. For many taxpayers, claiming the travel allowance will then bring more tax advantages than the annual and daily allowances for the home workplace.