During the height of the coronavirus pandemic nearly half of UK adults were working from home. Whilst this may have had its benefits for some, it also led to extra costs such as increased heating and electricity bills. The good news is that it is possible to claim back some money for working from home expenses.
So how do you claim back the costs?
If you are employed and working from home, you can ask your employer to cover ‘reasonable’ costs that are specifically required by your employment. This can include desks, chairs and tech equipment. Although there is no legal obligation for your employer to do this, in many cases, they may be willing to pay an extra £6 a week to cover the extra costs, and this is tax-free.
Even if your employer is not prepared to pay anything, you are able to claim tax relief through HMRC, even if you only work from home for one day in a tax year. How much you can claim is calculated as a percentage of £6 per week, dependant on how much tax you pay. For example, basic 20% rate taxpayers can gain £1.20 a week and higher 40% rate taxpayers can gain £2.40 a week. You can even take advantage of the working from home tax relief if you are self-employed.
These benefits also cover the 2021/22 tax year.
How to claim
The government has created a dedicated site to make these claims, to make it as easy to claim as possible. And it should only take you a few minutes to do. All you need is to have a Government Gateway User ID and password (which you can create here), your National Insurance Number and recent payslip, P60 or a valid passport.
Note: If you do a tax return and pay tax by Self Assessment, you have to include your working from home relief on your tax return form.