ome Working Tax Relief

Tax Relief Overview

‘Tax relief’ means that you either:

pay less tax to take account of money you’ve spent on specific things, like business expenses if you’re self-employed
get tax back or get it repaid in another way, like into a personal pension
You get some types of tax relief automatically - but some you must apply for.

Home Working Tax Relief

You may be able to claim tax relief for additional household costs if you have to work at home on a regular basis, either for all or part of the week. This includes if you have to work from home because of coronavirus (COVID-19).

You cannot claim tax relief if you choose to work from home.

Additional costs include things like heating, metered water bills, home contents insurance, business calls or a new broadband connection. They do not include costs that would stay the same whether you were working at home or in an office, such as mortgage interest, rent or council tax.

How Much Can you Claim?

Employers can pay staff up to £6 a week tax-free to cover additional costs for working from home. If your employer does not pay you additional costs for working from home, you can claim directly from HMRC.

You can either claim tax relief on:

• £6 a week from 6 April 2020 - you will not need to keep evidence of your extra costs

Or

• the exact amount of extra costs you’ve incurred above the weekly amount - you’ll need evidence such as receipts, bills or contracts

You’ll get tax relief based on the rate at which you pay tax. For example, if you pay the 20% basic rate of tax and claim tax relief on £6 a week you would get £1.20 per week in tax relief (20% of £6).

Can I Claim?

You can check if you are eligible to claim home working tax relief using the tool at the bottom of this government webpage.

After answering a few questions, if you are eligible to apply, a link will be provided to enable you to make the claim.

HMRC state that they have made the online service as easy to use as they can and that it takes only a few minutes to make a claim.

To begin your claim, you will need a Government Gateway ID and password.

Creating a Government Gateway Account

Once you complete the checker tool to determine your eligibility for home working tax relief, you will be taken to a page where you can sign into, or create, your Government Gateway account. Alternatively, you can login or create a Government Gateway personal tax account here.

Creating an account will take about 10 minutes. For this to work quickly you will need to have two of the following items, to prove your identity:

• UK passport
• Payslip or P60
• Driving License

Once your Government Gateway account has been created, you can then make your claim for home working tax relief.