Date posted: 24th May 2022
If you are an employee and you personally incur expenses in carrying out your job, you may be able to claim tax relief for those expenses.
Relief is only available for expenses that you must incur, rather than those that you choose to incur, and the expenses must be incurred wholly, necessarily and exclusively in performing the duties of your job.
Relief is not available for expenses that you incur to enable you to be able to do your job, such as childcare costs, nor it is available for private costs. Separate tests apply to travel expenses – relief is available for business travel but not private travel, which includes the ordinary commute.
Typical expenses
Although the expenses that an employee may incur will vary depending on the nature of their job, popular expenses for which claims may be made include travel costs, additional costs of working from home, professional fees and subscriptions, work clothing and tools and equipment.
Travel expenses
If you have to travel for your job and your employer does not meet the cost of the associated travel expenses, you may be able to claim a deduction.
Typical travel expenses include public transport costs, parking fees, congestion charges and tolls and where you travel by car, mileage costs. For most expenses the deduction is the amount that you spent. If you use your own car, you can claim a mileage allowance of 45p per mile for the first 10,000 business miles in the tax year and 25p per mile thereafter. If your employees pays you an allowance, but it less than the approved rates, you can claim a tax deduction on the difference. If you have a company car, you can claim a deduction for fuel based on HMRC’s advisory fuel costs. If you do not want to use the flat rates, you can instead claim a deduction based on the actual costs, but this will involve more work.
In the event that you have to stay away overnight, you can claim the cost of any overnight accommodation and food and drink.
Working from home
If you are required to work from home, you can claim a fixed rate deduction of £6 per week (£26 per month) for additional household costs incurred as a result of working from home. If preferred, you can claim the actual amount of extra costs that you have incurred from working from home, but you will need bills and receipts to support your claim.
Professional fees and subscriptions
If you have to pay a professional fee to be able to do your job and you meet the cost yourself, you can claim a deduction. You can also claim a deduction for any subscriptions that you pay to approved professional bodies or learned societies that are on HMRC’s list.
Making the claim
If you need to complete a self-assessment tax return (which may be the case if you also have income from self employment or investment income), you can make the claim in your tax return.
If you do not need to complete a tax return, you can either make the claim online or by post on form P87.
If you need assistance with a claim for tax relief for job related expenses, please give us a call.
