Money saving expert Martin Lewis has revealed how workers can claim a full year's worth of tax relief if they have been working at home because of coronavirus - even if it was only for one day.
Mr Lewis confirmed in a recent blog post that employees who have had to work from home will benefit from an HMRC system 'revamp', which sees claimants automatically receive the whole year's tax relief, regardless of how long they worked from home.
He said: “When we first looked at it, we couldn’t quite believe it seemed to indicate you’d automatically get the whole year’s claim.”
The tax break, worth £62 or £124, is designed to cover additional household costs for working from home, including heating and electricity costs, home contents insurance, business calls or an upgraded broadband connection.
The moneysavingexpert.com founder added: "Now for this tax year only, you only need to claim once, and you automatically get it claimed for ALL of this tax year at the £6/week relief rate.
NEW. If you've been required to work from home even for ONE DAY since 6 April… you can now legitimately claim tax relief for any extra costs for the WHOLE YEAR – worth £60 or £125. Full info & explanation in my bloghttps://t.co/ZEDHijjYRj
— Martin Lewis (@MartinSLewis) October 20, 2020
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"That's a gain of £62/year for basic rate taxpayers, £124/year at the higher rate.
"So if you have had to work at home at any point since 6 April 2020 (the start of the tax year) and you have higher costs due to it, no need to delay, claim immediately."
A spokesperson for HMRC said: “We recognise that the working from home situation is very fluid this year, so we’re accepting claims for the full year’s expenses.
"That includes even if people have only worked from home for some of the year, to avoid needing to contact us if you have to work from home again.”
To process the influx of claims, HMRC has this month set up a working-from-home microservice - making it easy for workers to claim using their Government Gateway ID.
You can visit the HMRC dedicated site here.
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