The Money Saving Expert, Martin lewis, has revealed how to get £24 a week for working from home.
With many of us forced to work from home during the pandemic, now Martin Lewis explained how you can claim some money back.
Being at home full time or part time can cause electricity and heating bills to shoot up, but there is a way to claim tax back on these extra costs.
It was revealed back in April that you can fill out a self assessment form online and get £24 a month tax-free.
And even if you are heading back into the office part time, Martin Lewis has confirmed that you are still entitled to a £6 a week tax break.
Martin Tweeted: "It's confirmed this applies even if you're only required to work from home part of the week.
In his blog on MoneysavingExpert.com, it states: “Many offices and places of work are reopening, but to ensure they are Covid safe, fewer employees can go into the premises at any one time.
“HMRC has confirmed that as long as you are required to work at home and have additional expenses due to it, even if:
- It is only working from home part-time
- Others are going into work
- You are only needed to work at home, say, one day in five and were in the office the rest of the week.”
It adds: "It's all thanks to allowance in place to cover the increase in your bills that results from spending all your time at home.
"If your employer requires you to work at home, you can – and have always been able to – claim for increased costs due to working from home, eg, heating and electricity."
There are two ways to do this:
Employers can pay you £6/week extra tax-free. Employers can give you an allowance up to this amount and what they give you is free from tax, so you get it all (to give you more, it will need to make special arrangements). But right now – with many firms struggling – asking may be bad timing, so instead you can...
Claim tax relief on £6/wk (worth £1.20/wk at 20% tax, £2.40/wk at higher rate). If your employer won't pay expenses for your extra costs due to necessary working from home, but you have them, then you can ask for the amount to be deducted from your taxable income. To make the process easy, HMRC says that claims in line with the employers' payment (ie, for £6/wk) will not need to justify that figure – meaning you won't need to keep receipts or prove information. The impact of a £6/wk claim is the tax savings, that's a gain of £1.20/wk (about £62/year) for basic 20% rate taxpayers, and £2.40/wk (about £124/yr) for higher 40% rate taxpayers. If you believe you have higher increased costs then you can claim more, but you will need evidence of the cost increases.
Martin added: "Apportioning these costs is tough. So instead you can, in simple terms, claim a rate of £6 a week. You can claim more if your costs are higher, but it becomes a much more labour intensive process.”
There are two main ways to claim the money, either online with a P87 form using your Government Gateway account or by filling out a postal P87 form. You will hear back within a couple of weeks.