Tax Relief Query (Working from home 2021-2022 pandemic tax year)

holyone2

I work from home, and would be regardless of covid as my company has no office. I started working April 2021, and I gather from here:
https://blog.moneysavingexpert.com/2020/04/martin-lewis--working-from-home-due-to-coronavirus--claim-p6-wk-/

That this means I can claim the whole years tax relief. I went to the government microservice website, and told them that I am not working at home due to coronavirus etc. and it led me to a web form, and I started filling it in. I got to the section for flat-rate relief, and it said for my industry the max expenses I can claim is £60. 

I am confused how this links in with the above article, which discusses £6 a week for a whole year:


The £60 expenses seems to fit with this: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/uniform-tax-refund/ which has nothing to do with working from home. The 20% rebate on £60 is a very small amount of money compared to the amounts discussed by Martin here:

"- £1.20 a week for a basic 20% rate taxpayer (£62.40 a year)
- £2.40 a week for a higher 40% rate taxpayer (£124.80 a year)
- £2.70 a week for a top 45% rate taxpayer (£140.40 a year)"

So I am unsure if I am claiming the right thing, or just confused maybe about the expected amount of expenses I should be claiming for. Thanks for any help

poppy12345

You've posted on the Covid section of the forum. You'll be better off posting on the cutting tax part of the forum.

MattMattMattUK

holyone2 said:

I work from home, and would be regardless of covid as my company has no office. I started working April 2021, and I gather from here:
https://blog.moneysavingexpert.com/2020/04/martin-lewis--working-from-home-due-to-coronavirus--claim-p6-wk-/

That this means I can claim the whole years tax relief. I went to the government microservice website, and told them that I am not working at home due to coronavirus etc. and it led me to a web form, and I started filling it in. I got to the section for flat-rate relief, and it said for my industry the max expenses I can claim is £60. 

I am confused how this links in with the above article, which discusses £6 a week for a whole year:

The £60 expenses seems to fit with this: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/uniform-tax-refund/ which has nothing to do with working from home. The 20% rebate on £60 is a very small amount of money compared to the amounts discussed by Martin here:

"- £1.20 a week for a basic 20% rate taxpayer (£62.40 a year)
- £2.40 a week for a higher 40% rate taxpayer (£124.80 a year)
- £2.70 a week for a top 45% rate taxpayer (£140.40 a year)"

So I am unsure if I am claiming the right thing, or just confused maybe about the expected amount of expenses I should be claiming for. Thanks for any help

It in many ways depends on how you pay your tax, self assessment or PAYE. I am guessing you are PAYE as you say "my company". In which case they can pay you as an expense, up to £6pw tax free, or they can agree to pay the actual costs tax free, with supporting evidence, however that is entirely at their discretion, you can not "claim" £6pw from anyone. If your employer do not pay you an amount you can apply for the tax relief option, which is the amounts detailed above.

In theory if you had higher costs than £6pw working from home you may be able to claim for a larger tax exemption, however in reality most people's costs are not more than £6pw working from home. 

holyone2

MattMattMattUK said:

holyone2 said:

I work from home, and would be regardless of covid as my company has no office. I started working April 2021, and I gather from here:
https://blog.moneysavingexpert.com/2020/04/martin-lewis--working-from-home-due-to-coronavirus--claim-p6-wk-/

That this means I can claim the whole years tax relief. I went to the government microservice website, and told them that I am not working at home due to coronavirus etc. and it led me to a web form, and I started filling it in. I got to the section for flat-rate relief, and it said for my industry the max expenses I can claim is £60. 

I am confused how this links in with the above article, which discusses £6 a week for a whole year:

The £60 expenses seems to fit with this: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/uniform-tax-refund/ which has nothing to do with working from home. The 20% rebate on £60 is a very small amount of money compared to the amounts discussed by Martin here:

"- £1.20 a week for a basic 20% rate taxpayer (£62.40 a year)
- £2.40 a week for a higher 40% rate taxpayer (£124.80 a year)
- £2.70 a week for a top 45% rate taxpayer (£140.40 a year)"

So I am unsure if I am claiming the right thing, or just confused maybe about the expected amount of expenses I should be claiming for. Thanks for any help

It in many ways depends on how you pay your tax, self assessment or PAYE. I am guessing you are PAYE as you say "my company". In which case they can pay you as an expense, up to £6pw tax free, or they can agree to pay the actual costs tax free, with supporting evidence, however that is entirely at their discretion, you can not "claim" £6pw from anyone. If your employer do not pay you an amount you can apply for the tax relief option, which is the amounts detailed above.

In theory if you had higher costs than £6pw working from home you may be able to claim for a larger tax exemption, however in reality most people's costs are not more than £6pw working from home. 

Indeed, PAYE as a full time employee, and my employer is not paying any expenses, so I thought I would claim for the relief. But when I go through the form, the most it offers is 60 GBP for the year, which is way less than 6 GBP per week (6 GBP *4.3*12 = 309 GBP expensies), so confused about that. 

MattMattMattUK

holyone2 said:

MattMattMattUK said:

holyone2 said:

I work from home, and would be regardless of covid as my company has no office. I started working April 2021, and I gather from here:
https://blog.moneysavingexpert.com/2020/04/martin-lewis--working-from-home-due-to-coronavirus--claim-p6-wk-/

That this means I can claim the whole years tax relief. I went to the government microservice website, and told them that I am not working at home due to coronavirus etc. and it led me to a web form, and I started filling it in. I got to the section for flat-rate relief, and it said for my industry the max expenses I can claim is £60. 

I am confused how this links in with the above article, which discusses £6 a week for a whole year:

The £60 expenses seems to fit with this: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/uniform-tax-refund/ which has nothing to do with working from home. The 20% rebate on £60 is a very small amount of money compared to the amounts discussed by Martin here:

"- £1.20 a week for a basic 20% rate taxpayer (£62.40 a year)
- £2.40 a week for a higher 40% rate taxpayer (£124.80 a year)
- £2.70 a week for a top 45% rate taxpayer (£140.40 a year)"

So I am unsure if I am claiming the right thing, or just confused maybe about the expected amount of expenses I should be claiming for. Thanks for any help

It in many ways depends on how you pay your tax, self assessment or PAYE. I am guessing you are PAYE as you say "my company". In which case they can pay you as an expense, up to £6pw tax free, or they can agree to pay the actual costs tax free, with supporting evidence, however that is entirely at their discretion, you can not "claim" £6pw from anyone. If your employer do not pay you an amount you can apply for the tax relief option, which is the amounts detailed above.

In theory if you had higher costs than £6pw working from home you may be able to claim for a larger tax exemption, however in reality most people's costs are not more than £6pw working from home. 

Indeed, PAYE as a full time employee, and my employer is not paying any expenses, so I thought I would claim for the relief. But when I go through the form, the most it offers is 60 GBP for the year, which is way less than 6 GBP per week (6 GBP *4.3*12 = 309 GBP expensies), so confused about that. 

The amount that can be paid by the employer as an expense, tax free is £6pw, if you claim from HMRC then the amount is the tax relief on £6pw. Those are the amounts which are shown from the MSE guide which you posted in your initial post and which is below.

£1.20 a week for a basic 20% rate taxpayer (£62.40 a year)

£2.40 a week for a higher 40% rate taxpayer (£124.80 a year)

£2.70 a week for a top 45% rate taxpayer (£140.40 a year)

holyone2

Thanks that makes sense, but when I went through the microservice form linked, assuming I am not sending them receipts etc. and choose a flat rate the website only lets me enter a flat expense rate for the year of 60 GBP maximum per year (which would be 1.16 GBP per week of expenses by dividing by weeks in a year), or 0.23 GBP per week of tax relief for a 20% tax rate payer I guess. 

Ebe_Scrooge

holyone2 said:

assuming I am not sending them receipts etc. and choose a flat rate the website

That's the nub of it.  For a lot of things expense-related, the government have a "flat rate" which they have calculated is applicable to most people in a particular job.  If you want to claim that then it's very easy and no receipts are needed.  You are perfectly entitled to claim more if you feel it's justified, but you then have to provide receipts, evidence and justification as to why it's a legitimate business expense, and it becomes quite time-consuming.  For most people, the flat-rate allowance works out as near enough in reality, and makes life far easier.

holyone2

Thanks but maybe a misunderstanding still, I appreciate the flat rate is lower than what can be claimed if we have higher expenses and receipts etc. but like Martin says 
"To make the process easy, HMRC says that for claims in line with the employers' payment (ie, £6 a week), you won't need to justify that figure – meaning you won't need to keep receipts or prove information." I would like to claim a flat rate of 6 GBP per week without receipts. 

But when I use the HMRC It is only allowing 60 GBP per year for the flat rate (without justifying with receipts etc.). My confusion is that 60 GBP works out to only  1.16 GBP per week, but Martin is suggesting we can somehow apply for 6 GBP per week...

sheramber

You should not be claiming the flat rate. 

You are claiming for working from home which should be a different claim.

holyone2

I see thank you - maybe I went down the wrong form or something, I'll have another go later

JCS1

And it is tax relief on £6 per week, not £6 per week.  As stated above by other people, that would be 20% of £6, so you would pay less tax per week by £1-20.