Yesterday, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt presented his second Autumn Statement, but with a very different tone to the gloomy announcements made this time last year. The Chancellor announced initiatives with a massive focus on pushing growth in the economy. The main question you’ll all no doubt have is… “how does it affect me?”, let’s take a look…
When can Employees claim for Working from Home?
19 March 2020
Darren Hughes
COVID-19, Reducing Tax, Payroll, People
Given the recent advice from our prime minster about working from home where applicable, many employees will be wondering whether they can make a tax claim for working from home. In order to claim income tax relief for home working it is usually required that your contract of employment requires you to work from home. However, given the advice from the Government and assuming your employer now requires you to work from, we consider that a claim could be made.
For taxpayers that already complete self assessment Tax Returns a relevant claim could be made against your employment income.
For taxpayers that do not usually complete Tax Returns then a claim can be made online following this link: Tax-relief-for-employees
The amount that can be claimed is £4 per week, which will rise to £6 per week from 6 April 2020.
HMRC’s technical guidance is as follows:
Before a deduction can be permitted for a household expense it must be demonstrated that the expense has been incurred wholly, exclusively and necessarily in the performance of the duties of the employment, see EIM31630 and EIM31660. Those are the statutory conditions imposed by Section 336 ITEPA 2003. HMRC accept that those conditions are met where the following circumstances apply:
- the duties that the employee performs at home are substantive duties of the employment. “Substantive duties” are duties that an employee has to carry out and that represent all or part of the central duties of the employment (see EIM32780)
- those duties cannot be performed without the use of appropriate facilities
- no such appropriate facilities are available to the employee on the employer’s premises (or the nature of the job requires the employee to live so far from the employer’s premises that it is unreasonable to expect him or her to travel to those premises on a daily basis)
- at no time either before or after the employment contract is drawn up is the employee able to choose between working at the employer’s premises or elsewhere.
There are a number of examples on HMRC employment income manual if you unsure if you qualify, the link can be found here see EIM32790
Can I claim tax relief for my glasses and hearing aid?
The content in this blog is correct as at 19 March 2020 See terms and conditions.
