2nd December, 2020, Dan Jastrzebski
This year has seen many of us working from home and having to use dining tables, spare rooms, and garden buildings as offices.
If you have been requested to work from home by your employer, to help prevent the spread of Coronavirus, you are entitled to claim £6 per week, tax-free, to cover any additional costs you may have occurred from 1 April 2020 to 31 March 2021.
This working from home tax allowance is to compensate employees for overheads such as electricity and heating and, in this tax year, you can make one flat rate claim for the whole year, even if you have only had to work from home for one day. This equates to £312 (£6 p/w for the 20/21 tax year).
If your employer has not made it possible for you to claim a home expenses payment directly, it is possible for you to make a flat rate expenses claim directly to HMRC.
Claims for the homeworking allowance for 2020/21 can be made through the new micro-service portal at gov.uk, even before the end of the tax year on 5 April 2021.