Tax deductions as employee (outside Covid-19 environment)

caldi9

Good evening,

Friends based in the continent told us how they could deduct all sort of expenses from their taxes as employees. Are there any costs employees can deduct from their taxes in the UK apart from the working from home relief during Covid-19?

Thank you

Dazed_and_C0nfused

Other expenses can sometimes be claimed.

What type of expenses have you incurred?

What sort of amounts per tax year?

If these expenses were needed for you to do your job then why didn't your employer reimburse you?

It's always better financially to get 100% reimbursement from your employer than trying to get maybe 20% back from HMRC.

caldi9

For instance, in some European countries one can claim home office, home office materials, gas for work commute, costs for higher education, etc.

pjread

I suppose some countries might allow that, but I don't think it's ubiquitous to allow commute and HE costs. 

If you can convince the employer to sponsor the HE that would probably work - a fair number of employers sponsor OU studies etc and to the best of my knowledge that doesn't give the employee a tax liability.  That convincing might reasonably include offering salary sacrifice to make it lower-cost or cost-neutral to the employer, which would seem to meet your aim of paying from pre-tax income.  I defer to others to correct me if this isn't viable, it makes logical sense but I've not direct experience of this. 

I don't see a valid way of getting relief on commute costs - they're pretty explicitly not allowable.  If you were home based and just had the occasional meeting requiring travel to "HQ", that might be different, but usually you'd expect the employer to reimburse in those cases.

Other 'straightforward' expenses are things like professional fees, uniform cleaning, etc - https://www.gov.uk/tax-relief-for-employees

Another option might be to relocate to one of those countries if that's plausible, but it seems extreme unless you already wanted to

Pennywise

The main two criteria for claiming costs is usually that you are specifically required to pay as part of your contract of employment and that there's no personal use/benefit, i.e. the wholly, exclusively and necessarily rule.  So, if, say, your contract of employment requires you to buy and use specific equipment (which you wouldn't use personally), then usually that can be claimed as an expense.  Likewise with training/education - if it's a specific requirement of your contract of employment to have a specific qualification and keep it up to date, then usually the cost can be a deduction.  Buying/paying for things voluntarily to do your job better or where there is also personal benefit is usually not allowable.  Nor is taking on additional training/qualifications that aren't a job requirement of your current job, but which may help you get a better job, also not allowable.  As said above, commuting is never allowable unless it's to a temporary workplace, i.e. to attend a works training course, or to visit a client, or to attend a distant/remote branch of your own employer for the odd day.  Fundamentally, it's very difficult to claim anything as the default assumption is for the employer to provide equipment, training, etc.