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Claiming employment related expenses

Newsletter issue – January 2023

There is a very limited range of expenses that employees can claim, but these can include the flat rate deduction (£6 per week) for working from home, if you are required to work from home, have no alternative place to work at, and your employer doesn‘t pay you a home-working allowance. You may also be able to claim uniform or tool allowances, which are specific to your trade, and claim mileage ( at 45p per mile) when you use your own vehicle while on a business journey.

You can claim for these employment -related expense in one of four ways:

1. Include the expense on your self-assessment tax return
2. Telephone HMRC, but you can only do this if you have made a similar claim in an earlier year.
3. Complete and post a paper P87 form, which you can download from gov.uk
4. Use the online P87 service through your online personal tax account on gov.uk.

You must use an approved version of the P87 form, not a substitute form or a letter

HMRC has realised that the new paper form P87 is not being completed in full by many taxpayers, so it has changed the rules to require the following sections of form P87 to be completed:

• Employee‘s name, date of birth, and home address including the postcode
• Employee‘s national insurance number
• Amount and description of the expense claimed
• PAYE reference of the employer

Where flat rate uniform or tool allowances are claimed, which are specific to defined industry sectors, you need to also include a description of the industry you work in.

If the form P87 doesn‘t include the required information it will be rejected.