Yahoo Finance Millions of Brits who WFH urged to claim up to £500 tax relief by HMRC
The HMRC has reminded Britons who have been working from home that they can claim tax relief on household-related costs. This could be as much as £500 ($691).
“More people are getting back to office working now, but it’s not too late to apply for tax relief on household expenses if they’ve been working from home during the pandemic," said Myrtle Lloyd, HMRC’s director general for customer services
It said that since April, almost 800,000 employees who have been logging in from home during the pandemic have already claimed tax relief on household-related costs.
The saving is worth up to £125 per year for each employee, and eligible workers can claim the full year’s entitlement if they have been told to work from home by their employer, even if it has been for one day during the tax year.
Read more: Five ways to cut your UK tax bill in 2021
If employees were required to work from home in the 2020/21 tax year but did not claim for the tax relief, they have not missed out; HMRC will accept backdated claims for up to four years.
This means it is possible to get back as much as £500.
Employees who have either returned to working in an office since early April or are preparing for their return can still claim the working-from-home tax relief and benefit from the full year’s relief for 2021/22.
The HMRC said it is easy to do so via its online portal.
Once an application has been approved, the employee's tax code will be automatically adjusted for the 2021/22 tax year, and they will get the tax relief directly through their salary.
Since April last year, the maximum amount employers have been able to pay tax-free without employees having to provide evidence of an increased bill was set at £6 a week.
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