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I'm an operations manager for a construction company and I very recently found out (and verified) that I'm eligible to write off some of my expenses as an employee - such as the (required) use of my personal vehicle for travel in the line of work (not commuting, although working from a home office part of the time should enable me to cover one way of the commute to a site or the main office, I believe), cellphone, and even a portion of my rent based on the utilization of space as an office. I do, however, have a couple of questions I would love if someone could help me out with: 1.) I haven't been keeping receipts for gas, maintenance, etc, as I just found this out. I do, however, have the ability to create a log of traveled kilometers based upon my invoicing records. Is there a flat per kilometer rate I can use for a simplified calculation? Most instances allow for this OR the use of a detailed calculation utilizing receipts, maintenance records, figuring out your capital cost allowance, etc. For whatever reason, I can't find information on this in the case of being an employee. 2.) How does one calculate the fair amount to write off for expenses that are split between work and personal use. I'm specifically referring to my cellphone and rent here. I imagine the phone would be a case of splitting it down the middle and claiming half considering most of my use of it is actually work related, but the rent is more complicated. If I pay $900 a month for rent, utilize roughly a quarter of it as an office, and complete 20% of my work from there is it a case of 900*.25*.2 = the monthly write off amount or can I just go 900*.25 since the office is still an expense the 80% of the time I'm working on location? Any help here would be greatly appreciated. Trying to get the 'ol head start this year.
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| # ? Feb 2, 2013 23:14 |
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| # ? May 22, 2013 09:07 |
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I don't know about most of the other stuff, but to be deducted as a personal office expense (ITA s. 8(13)) you need to either: a) "principally" perform your duties of office or employment there (meaning you perform more work there than at your actual office), or b) use the space exclusively for the purpose of earning income from office or employment, and also meet customers there on a regular basis (around once a week) Since you do 80% of your work at the main office, (a) doesn't apply. And since it doesn't sound like you meet customers on a regular basis in your home office, and since you likely use it for more than just business purposes, (b) likely doesn't apply either. Disclaimer: I am not an accountant or lawyer, and I am in no way qualified to give you tax advice. You should probably talk to an accountant. burf fucked around with this message at Feb 3, 2013 around 04:42 |
| # ? Feb 3, 2013 04:23 |
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Should contain all the info you need: http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/E/pub/tg/t4044/t4044-12e.pdf
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| # ? Feb 4, 2013 19:56 |
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