SteuerGo FAQs

(2022) When is the home office the centre of professional activity?

If the home office is the "centre of all business and professional activities", the costs are fully deductible as business expenses. This is the case if you carry out all your professional and business activities exclusively in the home office.

If you work partly in the home office and partly outside, the assessment of the home office as the centre depends on whether the qualitative focus of the overall activity is in the home office. This is the case if the essential and defining activities for the profession are carried out there. The "centre" is therefore determined by the main focus of the professional activity.

The decisive factor is not the duration of use. The time (quantitative) usage is at most an indication: extensive use suggests the centre, while minimal use suggests otherwise.

The home office can also be the centre if the time spent there is less than 50% of the total professional and business activity and the external activities predominate in terms of time. It is important that the work in the home office is so significant for the profession that it defines it. It is not sufficient for the activities in the home office to have merely a supporting function.

Examples:

• For typical sales representatives and field staff, the qualitative focus of the overall activity is usually outside the home office in the business district. The work done in the home office does not define the profession but has a supporting function.
• For a sales manager who is out of the office on average two days a week to supervise 13 field staff and look after some key accounts, the home office is the centre. This is where he performs the essential tasks for his job.
• For university lecturers and judges, the home office is not considered the centre, as they do not perform the essential and defining tasks for their profession at home. For university lecturers, these are the lectures at the university, and for judges, the court hearings.

 

During the corona years, countless employees were sent to home office. Different situations were encountered. Some were "forced" to work from home, others were given the choice of working in the employer's office or from home, and others had to coordinate with colleagues regarding the use of the workplace, as only one person was allowed in the office at a time. But how should the costs for the home office be taken into account?

If you work partly at home and partly on site, the following applies to the home office:

• Three days home office: If you work at home three days a week, it depends on whether the work in the office and home office is of equal quality: If so, the home office is the "centre", and the costs are fully deductible. If the work in the office is of higher quality, the home office cannot be the centre. Then a deduction of up to 1.250 Euro is possible, as "no other workplace" is available on the three home working days (BFH ruling of 23.5.2006, VI R 21/03). During the corona period, most tax offices assume without further examination that the work in the office and home office is of equal quality.
• Two days home office: If you work at home only two days a week, it depends on whether the workplace in the office could also be used during this time: If the use is neither restricted nor prohibited, a deduction for business expenses is not possible. However, if the use of the workplace in the office is excluded on the home working days (e.g. because it is used by another employee or the employer has prohibited its use), the "other workplace" cannot be used in the specifically required scope and manner. Therefore, costs for the home office of up to 1.250 Euro are deductible as business expenses (BFH ruling of 26.2.2014, VI R 40/12).