Working From Home Tax Relief

Claiming a tax rebate for working at home is one of the easiest ways to claw back a little extra cash from the taxman. Tax refund claims can often be complicated, with real expertise and in-depth understanding needed to make the most of them. Tax rebates for working from home, though, can actually be really simple to claim. In fact, depending on your situation, you could even do it all yourself with a few clicks on the gov.uk website.

How does it work?How does working from home tax relief work?

The way you claim tax relief for working from home depends on whether you're an 'on the books' employee or self-employed. Self-employed people generally include their expenses for working from home as part of their normal Self Assessment tax return paperwork. They can still use the stand-alone system on the gov.uk website to claim working from home tax relief for just the 2022-2023 tax year, though.

Employed people who are taxed through the PAYE system, on the other hand, will need to claim their tax relief separately, and can check their eligibility on the gov.uk site . Of course, if you're claiming with RIFT for other work expenses like business mileage as well, your tax relief for working from home will be taken care of as part of your claim.

If you claim tax relief for working from home and you're on the PAYE system, you'll see a change in your tax code. Don't worry about this; it just means that HMRC is boosting your tax-free Personal Allowance so you can earn a little more before you start paying tax. If you're ever not sure you're on the right tax code, talk to RIFT. We can check it for you and get it fixed if there's a problem.

DeadlineWhat is the deadline for claiming working from home tax relief?

Like other kinds of tax relief, you can claim back your tax for working from home for up to 4 years. Any money you still haven't claimed after that time is gone for good.

Who's eligible?Who can claim tax relief for working from home?

Obviously enough, you can only claim your tax refund for working from home in any years where you actually qualify for it. During the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, the rules were relaxed to help people who were working from home to protect themselves or others. After the 6th of April 2022, however, the system was changed—meaning fewer employees could make a claim.

If you're employed, the rules for claiming tax relief for working from home say you need to be one of the following:

Required to work from home by your employer.
Living too far away from your work to travel there.
Prevented from working away from home because your employer doesn't have the necessary facilities.

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How to claimHow to claim for working from home tax relief

The process for claiming tax relief for working from home is pretty simple. There's a special page on the.gov.uk website to get you started. Once you've checked that you can make a claim, you'll need to log into your account with your Government Gateway ID. If you don't already have one of these, you'll have to set one up before claiming. You can do that easily with a valid passport, payslip or P60 form. Once you're logged in, just follow the prompts on-screen to claim your tax relief.

Again, though, you only need to do this if you're not claiming a tax refund for any other work expenses. If you've got essential costs like travel or tools to claim for, talk to RIFT about getting your refund rolling with the UK's top tax experts.

How much can I claim?How much can I claim for working from home tax relief?

How much tax relief you can get for working from home depends on which tax bracket you fall into. Basic rate taxpayers can get £1.20 per week, which comes to £62.40 per year. That's worked out as if you were claiming 20% tax back on weekly expenses of £6. Higher and Additional rate taxpayers can claim £124.80 per year (40% of £6 per week) or £140.40 per year (45% of £6 per week), respectively.

If the actual costs you're running up working from home are a lot higher than the £6 per week the government estimates, you could be better off making a full tax refund claim instead. Talk to RIFT about getting back what the taxman owes you.