What about employee allowance?
Reasonable is rather subjective. I think arguing the cost of going up one tier is reasonable. If you are paying $90 a month and going up to the next tier is $100, then claim $10 a month. It is conservative I can’t think of another way reasonable allocation that would be easily defendable.
Of course any amount could be defined as reasonable, $30 a month for instance. Ultimately you have to defend your definition of reasonable with the CRA auditor who is just going to pick their own number anyway and tell you to object if you don’t like their allocation.
Employee allowances are taxable to the employee but then they can deduct on their T1’s an amount they feel is reasonable. If the allowance is not reasonable itself, you could have the expense limited on your tax return. You can’t just pay your employees $5000 a year allowance for internet access.
CRA could come in and limit it to $1000, or deny it all together. Now you don’t have an expense and the employees are still paying tax on the $5000 allowance.
We can debate what is reasonable to the cows come home. Based it on hard evidence and document it, makes it harder for the CRA to reject it. If you want to make sure your employees have adequate bandwidth, you can document quite easily an allowance for the average monthly increase to the next tier.
Actually this is a very good way of allocating costs, bar none. Shared space would need to be further amended for number of hours a day work is done in that room over 24 hours. Consider also areas like basement and garages need special attention. Storing a generator in your garage so you can only park 1 vehicle in it does not automatically gain a 50% business use. I went to class with a CRA auditor who actually brought this up and said they reduced the claim to the 8 square feet the generator took up.
I have a drywaller client who has the T2200 saying he has to have a cell phone during work, so 40 hours a week. By his admission, it’s 95% personal. He still has to have it during those hours.
Maybe I’m oversimplifying, but my thought was that 40 hours is 23% of the week, so 23% of the bill should be deductible.
Even without the T2200, if the phone is needed to work, then the percentage hours that make up the work week is the percentage of the bill that could be deducted. Naturally, long distance charges could only be added in if they are work calls.
I think this would cover it.
Line 31260 – Canada employment amount
Note: Line 31260 was line 363 before tax year 2019.
If you reported employment income in 2020, you can claim on line 31260 of your return, whichever is less :
- $1,245
- the total of the employment income you reported on line 10100 and line 10400 of your return
Note
All income reported at lines 10100 and 10400 is eligible for the Canada employment amount.
The Canada employment amount provides recognition for work-related expenses such as home computers, uniforms and supplies in the public and private sector.
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These days most cell phone plans include long distance as part of the package so I think percentage by hours may be reasonable when that’s the case.
Had a client working a mega cattle operation. The boss was texting him stall numbers all day. His monthly cell phone went from less than $100 to multiple times that amount. He told the boss to either get him a company phone or pay for the texts. The boss paid for the Texts. 
Expense reimbursement; non-taxable.