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Claiming tax back help!

Hi everyone,

I am a nurse and I've just completed the online HMRC form for claiming tax relief for my professional subscriptions and flat rate expenses (for uniform laundry and socks/tight allowance).

For the year ending April 2013 I was overseas working however I still had to pay my professional subscriptions to remain on the nursing register and have union representation should I have needed it.

The form is generic and states that if you have not paid tax during the year then no refund will be due however I still had to pay my subscriptions. Is it worth applying or not??

Comments

  • jimmo
    jimmo Posts: 2,287 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    Are you sure that's an HMRC form you are filling in?
    Whilst the information is perfectly correct (if you've paid no tax in a particular year there can be nothing for HMRC to repay) it just sounds more like you may be on a website where you will be charged a fee for something you can easily do yourself for free.
    Also UNISON are notorious on here for referring their members to those kind of people.
    The correct form is a P87 but I'm not aware of any facilty to do it on-line.
    https://www.gov.uk/tax-relief-for-employees/how-to-claim
  • Lettyx1
    Lettyx1 Posts: 19 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture First Post Combo Breaker
    Yes, it's the P87 I've completed online and then you have to print the completed form and sign
  • Caz3121
    Caz3121 Posts: 15,875 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper
    Lettyx1 wrote: »
    The form is generic and states that if you have not paid tax during the year then no refund will be due however I still had to pay my subscriptions. Is it worth applying or not??
    It is tax relief on the amount so in theory they recalculate the amount of tax you would have paid if it had been taken off your gross pay and refund the difference, if you paid no tax in the UK as you were under your personal allowance, there is nothing to refund

    Another example that is often here is business mileage for low earners, using the P87 you can often claim the difference between HMRC rates and what was paid by employer

    if doing 10,000 business miles in your own car and paid 20p per mile by employer the following would be reclaimed
    high rate taxpayer - £1,000
    20% taxpayer - £500
    non-taxpayer - £0

    your situation would be similar...non taxpayer = nothing to refund
  • Lettyx1
    Lettyx1 Posts: 19 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture First Post Combo Breaker
    Thank you. It was worth checking. I'll just claim for the other 3 years then!! Shame I didn't get round to doing this before. This is my 25th year as a nurse!!!
  • Cook_County
    Cook_County Posts: 3,092 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    you may of course be able to claim tax in the overseas country where you were working that year.
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