When is home contents insurance tax deductible?

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Lerato Khumalo

Home contents insurance is tax deductible in certain cases. What are the requirements and where do you declare the costs in your tax return?

If you pay insurance premiums, you can deduct them from your taxes if the insurance serves as your pension. This is usually not the case with home contents insurance. However, there is an exception.

Home contents insurance is tax deductible if it is related to your professional activities. In concrete terms, this means that if your apartment or house has a tax-deductible home office, you can claim a proportion of the home contents insurance premiums as a tax deduction.

To do this, you enter them as business expenses in your tax return. You can find these in Annex N. Make sure, however, that you calculate the correct amount. It works like this: Let’s assume you own or rent a 100 square meter apartment. Your home office takes up 15 square meters of this. You can then deduct 15 percent of the annual premiums for your home contents insurance from your taxes.

The costs of home contents insurance are also tax deductible if you use rooms in your apartment or house for business purposes. You can then deduct these as business expenses proportionately from your company’s income.

In any case, keep your home contents insurance policy so that you can present it to the tax office upon request.

Tax law equates home contents insurance with comprehensive insurance. This insurance does compensate you for material damage and thus protects your assets, but it is not intended to be a permanent burden in the future. This is why home contents insurance is not considered a precautionary expense.