Martin Lewis is urging people to claim £280 back if they worked from home during lockdown

Virgin Radio

28 Jul 2022, 15:09

Money-saving expert Martin Lewis has an important message for people trying to cut costs as living prices go up.

He's urging people to check if they are eligible for up to £280 tax relief.

You might be eligible, to get the refund you need to have worked from home during lockdown.

If your home became your office, then he has some important advice for you about a potentially useful service.

It involves the ‘microservice’ launched by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC).

It can grant you a whole year’s tax relief even if you only needed to work from home for a day.

Even better, the relief can be applied for both the 2020/21 and 2021/22 tax years.

In total this could see you claiming up to £280.

If you worked from home, even for one day, between 6 April 2020 and 5 April 2022, you can still claim.

You can back-claim up to four years.

HMRC has confirmed that claims from employees working from home due to coronavirus measures are eligible for tax relief.

Even if you didn't permanently work from home, but just had to after you were told to self-isolate, this also counts.

To claim, you must have had and declare that you had ‘specific extra costs due to working from home’.

Martin recommends a ‘flat rate’ of £6 a week.

A key question is if you employer paid you expenses for your extra costs resulting from working from home.

You can ask for that amount to be ‘deducted from your taxable income’.

The service launched in October 2020.

If you are successful, you’ll be paid via cheque or bank transfer.

It isn't limited to one per household either, if your partner had to work from home too, they can also claim.

“I still get swamped with messages from people who can't believe how quick and easy this process is,” Martin said.