New CRA rules around working from home make it harder to claim expenses

financialpost.com:

If you’re one of the millions of Canadians who worked from home during 2023, either full time or on a hybrid-work arrangement, you’ll need to take some extra time this tax filing season if you want to claim a deduction for your home-office expenses. That’s because the “simplified method” of claiming home-office expenses is no longer available for the 2023 tax year.

You may recall that as a result of the widespread work-from-home arrangements that began due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) introduced a simplified method for employees to claim home-office expenses.

Under this method, which was available for the 2020, 2021 and 2022 tax years, you didn’t have to track your actual home-office expenses. Instead, employees could claim $2 per day for up to 250 days, or $500 ($400 for 2020), as employment expenses. No receipts or proof of your expenditures was needed, and, most significantly, no CRA form was needed from your employer to certify your work-from-home arrangement.

But for the 2023 tax return, which is generally due on April 30, 2024, employees who wish to claim home-office expenses will have to go through the tedious exercise of tallying all their expenses, prorating them and then claiming the appropriate amount as a deduction on their 2023 returns.

Here’s a quick guide to the home-office expense rules for employees, which expenses qualify and how the calculation is supposed to be done based on the latest guidance released by the CRA earlier this month.

To be entitled to deduct home-office expenses, you must be required to use a part of your home for work. The CRA has confirmed that the requirement to maintain a home office need not be part of your formal contract of employment; rather, it