UK employees can claim up to £6 a week, £312 per year to cover the extra costs of working from home in the form of a tax relief. This includes employees who have had to work from home because of Covid-19. You can even make a kick-back claim all the way from April 2020.
Since a new online portal had been released by the government on 1st October, 54,800 new claims were made in the first 10 days!
Here’s how to make a claim in 6 easy steps:
1.. Visit this link: https://www.gov.uk/tax-relief-for-employees/working-at-home
2.. Click ‘Check if you can claim’.
3.. Answer some preliminary questions. Here are examples of questions you may be expected to answer:
- Do you complete Self-assessment returns?
- Has your employer paid your expenses for working from home?
- Did you start working from home because of Covid-19?
4.. Log in using your Government Gateway ID and password.
5.. If you do not already have an account with HMRC, have handy a form of ID (a UK passport or driver’s licence) and a payslip or P60 to provide your National Insurance number.
6.. Enter the date you started working from home.
That’s it! Now all you have to do is wait for your tax code to be changed.
Although the scheme did exist in previous years, the tax relief had been repurposed as a means of providing extra support to those who have been forced to work from home due to the pandemic.
It only takes 15 minutes to make a claim!
Read more about this on the gov.uk website:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/54800-customers-claim-tax-relief-for-working-from-home