14 October 2020 
Julia Ascott, Employment Taxes Specialist
HMRC have issued a press release confirming that 54,800 employees have claimed tax relief for homeworking between 1-11 October using the online portal.
A homeworking tax free allowance is available for £6 per week, payable from employers to employees who work from home on a regular basis to cover additional household costs.
The online portal is available for employees who meet the conditions, but are not paid the £6 allowance from their employer. Employees can instead, claim tax relief for £6 per week - NB they would not be paid £6 per week from HMRC, they instead get tax relief depending on their rate of tax.
For example, £6 per week equates to £312 per year. The basic rate tax relief available for the year would therefore be £62.40.
As most universities are not paying the £6 homeworking allowance to their employees, it might be useful to remind those staff who are regularly working from home that they can still claim for tax relief using the online portal, rather than via tax returns.
