Home Office Expenses

I work from home.

Can I claim home expenses while filing taxes?

The short answer is yes but the rules are different considering whether you are self-employed or an employee working remotely.

If you are self-employed and using a part of your home to do your business, you can claim home office expenses against your self-employment income.

If you are an employee working remotely, you need to meet some criteria in order to be eligible to claim home office expenses. The first criterion is that you did 50% or more of your job from home during the tax year. The second one is that you have a T2200 signed by your employer confirming that you should be deducting home expenses from your employment income. For more information about home office expenses for employees, you can visit the CRA website.

Usually in both cases, what is needed is the area you used for the work and the total area of your home (sqft), which gives the workspace use percentage.

You should provide your tax preparer with the total expenses (both personal and business), and they calculate the business portion of it based on workspace use percentage. You may find more information on how it is calculated on the CRA website.

The common home office expenses are heat, electricity, insurance, maintenance, mortgage interest, property taxes, rent, and other expenses which need to be specified.

We have prepared a template that you can use to record your expenses.

If you have any questions, contact us at info@rbtj.ca.