HMRC Continues Clawback on Work Expense Claims.

Claiming work expenses is something that has generated a massive claw-back in Tax by HMRC in the last few years and continues to reap rewards for HMRC.

Sadly, we see many, many cases where employees firmly believe that they are entitled to claim expenses for carrying out their employment duties but sadly employees are rarely eligible to claim such expenditure paid out in the course of their employment.

HMRC’s rules on this are very strict and very limited.

If you have claimed expenses on your tax return it is such an easy thing to do and saves you so much money in tax that it is very tempting to believe that you can claim for that mileage, car running costs, the work gear, the food, the hotels, and the entertaining that you believe you incur quite rightly in the course of your job.

Do not get caught out by online adverts and tax refund companies who offer to make these work expenses claims for you because they are doing it to recover commission on that rebate for themselves.

If it turns out that you are not eligible to claim you personally are still responsible for any claims made on your behalf by them and you will be the one who has to pay the tax back, with an interest charge and possible penalty charges.

The first thing you have to do Is check whether you are eligible to claim expenses which normally generate a tax refund.

It doesn’t take long to read the Revenues guidance to see whether you can claim for those uniforms, the laundry, the tools and all the travel expenses and it may be that some are eligible, but many are not.

We have seen, huge tax settlements for people who genuinely believed that they could claim these expenses but had not checked properly by reading the online HMRC guidance or seeking advice of an accountant or specialist tax advisor first.

To make sure your claims are valid, before you submit a tax return, seek specialist advice. You will need to provide the supporting evidence but as an employee the Revenue’s view is that any expenses should be reimbursed by your employer and very few are allowable to be claimed on a tax return against your income. Quite simply for example you cannot claim for any expenses that your employer has already reimbursed.

Go to Gov.uk or speak to a specialist before you even think about claiming any work related job expenses and recognise the signs of bad advice. If someone promises easy money and it sounds too good to be true it probably is.

If you are tempted to use a tax refund company, take your time and do some research. Call us first and we will help you make that decision, because HMRC will come back and recover any tax from you, and they can go back for many years and this can be extremely punitive for an employee who may have made claims for many years.

But if you have already made these claims (and typically we see claims increasing year on year) then call Andy Rusling on 07879 464577 or Lindsay Henson on 07584 706664 for advice or a fixed price for the work needed to get yourself sorted with HMRC at the earliest opportunity .