What expenses should my employer pay if I work from home?

In the UK Employers may pay for any costs of working from home, such as heating, lighting metered water, telephone or internet access costs. Costs that have that are the same whether you are working from home or in the office such as rent payments mortgage interest, council tax cannot be included.

Claiming Tax back if you are forced to work at home from Covid 19 and the lockdowns

To get tax relief as an employee if your employer requires you to work from home is possible. And in short you can claim here, which was spotted by the eagle eyes at Money Saving Expert .

Can I claim tax relief for working from home?

• Yes. If you have been required to work from home for only one day since the 6th April then you will be able to claim for all of 2020. This is worth £60 - £125.

The staff at Money Saving Expert didn’t quite believe that this was possible and the following conversation occurred between HMRC and Martin Lewis:

Martin: ‘Are you really telling me you’ll give a year’s tax relief even if someone only needs to work from home for one day?’ HMRC: ‘After your questions, we’ve put this to our policy people – specifically the bit about “if you must work at home for less than a week, can you claim for a year?” – and they say yes.’ Martin: ‘You know I’m going to press the metaphorical big red button and go huge on this don’t you?’ HMRC: ‘We know Martin, so we expect it to be everywhere, but that’s the answer.’ Martin: ‘To make this watertight can I have a direct quote in writing?’

How to claim tax relief from working from home from HMRC

You can click the link here , which will take you to the HMRC website. There will be a short series of questions that will check your eligibility to claim, but you should be able to claim straight away using this service. From October 2020, this has meant that you now only have to claim once, rather than for every time you are forced to work from home.

Step by Step Claiming tax relief due to working from Home

For a full summary of the step by step approach to claiming tax relief due to working from home check out this youtube , which explains the process in more detail.

I am part of a couple, can both of us still claim tax relief due to Working from home?

Yes. The tax relief for working from home is an individual benefit which means that you can both claim tax

• WFH