Tax refund - working from home

milliemonster

I work from home (my home is my base in my contract of employment) and some time ago I heard you could claim a tax refund of £3 a week for electricity used. I phoned my local tax office a few months ago and they sent me a letter which I duly completed and returned at the beginning of July but have heard nothing since.

After speaking to them I understand I can claim this £3 a week for the last 6 years so I have backdated my claim to when I started work with this employer in jan 2005, I also understand I can't claim for weeks of leave etc which I have deducted and worked our I am owed around £600.

How do I pursue this now? as I have heard nothing else, will it be refunded in my salary or direct from the tax office or will my tax code be adjusted to reflect this?

any advice welcomed

fengirl_2

The working from home allowance only went up to £3pw from (I think) last tax year. Before that it was £2pw.
You are not due a refund based on £3/£2pw, but rather tax relief based on this amount. Therefore, the tax relief for one year would be £3 x 52 = [EMAIL="£156@20%"]£156 @ 20%[/EMAIL] = £31.20 (assuming you are a basic rate taxpayer. The rates of tax will vary as they were higher in previous years.
If you only sent your claim in July, its too early to chase this up as most tax offices have 8-10 weks post on hand.
In the olden days, you would have got a cheque to cover past years and an amendment to this years code in relation to this years allwoance, but HMRC's practice now appears to be to work out the refund and interest due and slap it all in the current code number - in other words you have to wait for the end of the tax year to receive all the relief due from 6 years ago. If you had written specifically asking for a payable order, then they have to send you one, but probably too late now.

HJC123

Hi, I sent in such a claim in April of this year.. (I claimed back for 6 yrs). I received a reply in June which had simply adjusted my current code to allow for the tax relief on this amount. The total repayment for the 6 years only equated to about £140.
I have subsequently spoken to the tax office on numerous occasions since (about various other things) and on occasion did question the advisor about this expense reclaim. He went off and spoke to someone else and came back and advised me the following:
He said that my code had been adjusted to repay me back the tax relief on the amount claimed but that the actual amount (ie the £2/£3 per week over 6 yrs.. approx £600) would be repaid to me ''in real money''.
I have yet to receive a refund of any kind, but have sent a letter in about 4 weeks ago requesting one asap (although I am aware their new computer system installation is delaying everything massively).

Fengirl, have I been given wrong ifo from this advisor then? Is the tax releif they have already granted me the most I will get? Will I not get this illusive £600 that has been hinted at??!!

Sorry for the long post!! Many thanks in advance for any help and advice you can offer me.

fengirl_2

The adviser is correct and is the same as my original answer above.
You get tax RELIEF on the expense, not the actual expense back. As you can see from my reply in the original post, in money terms it works out at around £30pa, depending on your highest rate of tax.
As I also said above, HMRC are now tending to amend code numbers to pay back the relief over the current year. Your code number has been amended to give the relief as they have expalined to you and, although you wont have received an actual refund of tax through your pay, you will be paying slightly less tax for the rest of the year. Hence, you have to wait a year for the whole refund which is very naughty in my opinion.
Thats why when you write to HMRC with a claim for past years, its essential to ask for a payable order, NOT a tax code change.

HJC123

Thanks for your knowledge Fengirl, much appreciated.

I shall just keep stalking the tax office over a refund for my incorrect tax codes over the last 18 months.. Wish me luck!! ;o)

fengirl_2

I'm afraid you wont have any luck at this stage. If they remove the allowance from your code number now, you will have an underpayment of tax to be collected next year, which will negate any payable order. I dont see them agreeing to this.