How you can deduct the home office from your taxes at the tax office

The topic of working from home has gained significant importance in the wake of the coronavirus crisis. Normally, it is quite difficult to deduct a home office from your taxes. There are very strict requirements for this. The term "home office" is quite vague and can ultimately mean many things. From one day to the next, the children's room became a workplace, the kitchen table a desk. Due to the coronavirus crisis, millions of people in Germany had to work from home this year. Now, the Bundestag has paved the way for the tax home office allowance.

From a tax perspective, employees can therefore deduct up to five euros per day from their taxes for 2020 and 2021. This is intended to compensate for the additional burdens caused by working from home. But be careful: the total amount per year is capped. It should apply for a maximum of 120 days, meaning a total of up to 600 euros. Anyone who has worked from home for more than 120 days will only receive 600 euros.

Disadvantage: Those who work from home do not incur travel expenses, and therefore the commuting allowance for trips between home and the first place of work is waived for each day.

The home office allowance counts as income-related expenses. There is a general allowance of 1,000 euros for income-related expenses. This means that only those whose income-related expenses, including the home office allowance, exceed 1,000 euros will receive any relief at all. The home office allowance is not a huge tax saving, but better than nothing.