HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) have confirmed that employed workers can now claim the working from home allowance for the new tax year (2021/22), where they have worked at home for just one day because of the Coronavirus restrictions.
The £6 per week working from home allowance is worth £62 for basic rate (20%) taxpayers; £125 for higher rate (40%) taxpayers and £140 for additional rate (45%) taxpayers for the 2021/22 tax year.
HMRC relaxed the rules last year on who is eligible to claim the working from home allowance. Before the Coronavirus pandemic, a worker could only claim the allowance in limited circumstances where their employer required them to work at home and for that specific period only.
HMRC said that people could claim the working from home allowance for the entire 2020/21 tax year if they had worked at home for just one day because of the Coronavirus restrictions preventing them from attending their place of work.
At the start of the new tax year, HMRC have confirmed the same relaxed rule will apply for the 2021/22 tax year.
It’s a very welcome and early move from HMRC to allow people to easily claim the tax relief. People will have seen their household bills naturally go up over the last year, from increased working at home, and it’s positive that the Government have recognised this.
HMRC’s microservice site was already up and running so it makes sense for them to extend the system for this tax year. HMRC are also likely to be wary of people making standalone claims for working at home this tax year, and the additional time and cost it would take to process these, so it makes sense from their perspective to simply let the system run for another year.
Those that haven’t claimed their allowance for the 2020/21 tax year can do this at the same time as claiming the current tax year. They should use HMRC’s microservice which can be found at – https://www.gov.uk/tax-relief-for-employees/working-at-home.
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