Tax question

[zulander]

One of the lads at work sent me this today im sure hes pulling my leg but what do u think. Its almost silly enough to be true?

Wash your uniform at home? You can get a new tax code…

Then write to your tax office and tell them, obviously it depends what you earn but it can be backdated… “Every little helps!”

It only costs the price of a stamp so worth a try

All you need to do is fill in the blanks and send it to your work's tax office.

Your Name
Your Address
Date

Inland Revenue
Tax Office Address
Details available from
Your employer/pay roll dept
…………
Postcode.

Dear Inland Revenue

RE: Expenses Allowance

I have been employed at Company Name, Location since (Date of Starting at Employment). I am obliged to launder the uniform, which is supplied to me by the company. I therefore wish to claim an expenses allowance of £45 for each year since the above date.

Yours Faithfully

Your Name
Your Tax code

[TiG]

Sounds rubbish to me, For example why £45?, where is the reciepts to prove you are doing it.

TiG

[MadduckUK]

its only the 29th March, too early!

[Saracen]

I'm not familiar with this particular "allowance", but I wouldn't be at all surprised to find this is absolutely legitimate. There are countless tax rulings of exactly this type.

My money is on it being correct.

Oh, and not all costs are subject to receipts, TiG. The receipt thing is a good general guide and it's far better to have them than not, wherever possible, but it isn't always an absolute requirement.

If in doubt, ring your local tax office and ask.

BUT ..... I'd also bet they'll be qualifying factors. It might, for instance, only apply to certain occupations where uniforms are mandatory. It might require written confirmation from your employer. It might apply to nurses or armed forces personnel, but not to staff in MacDonalds or Tesco. Etc.

If you think it might apply to you, it's worth asking. Ring the tax office.

[b0redom]

Well, I'd be surprised. Currently you can't claim for clothing (suits etc) as the tax man says that you'd need to wear something anyway.

Give it a go though - you have nothing to loose but your free minutes or the cost of a stamp.

[Saracen]

I've done a bit of reading. It appears to be legitimate.

See EIM32480 here for details, and EIM32485 here for current amounts.

These are both on the HMRC website.

Note: As those rulings point out, this is in respect of actual costs incurred, not a notional rate, and you can't charge your time to do laundry, etc, AND it only applies to mandatory protective clothing and uniforms, not ordinary clothing that you happen to use for work.

But ..... it's absolutely legit, and the current suggested rate is £45.

[schmunk]

Unfortunately, as a desk jockey (in personal tax...) I cannot claim for anything

[Lee H]

I bet Agent will try to claim for the laundry of his high-vis 'raving' jackets and shoes when he reads this later

[Workaholic]

I'm not familiar with this particular "allowance", but I wouldn't be at all surprised to find this is absolutely legitimate. There are countless tax rulings of exactly this type.

My money is on it being correct.

Oh, and not all costs are subject to receipts, TiG. The receipt thing is a good general guide and it's far better to have them than not, wherever possible, but it isn't always an absolute requirement.

If in doubt, ring your local tax office and ask.

BUT ..... I'd also bet they'll be qualifying factors. It might, for instance, only apply to certain occupations where uniforms are mandatory. It might require written confirmation from your employer. It might apply to nurses or armed forces personnel, but not to staff in MacDonalds or Tesco. Etc.

If you think it might apply to you, it's worth asking. Ring the tax office.

Why not in Mcdonalds, surely they of all companies should be allowed to claim due to health and safety issues!

[Saracen]

Why not in Mcdonalds, surely they of all companies should be allowed to claim due to health and safety issues!

If you look, all I said was that I'd bet there were rules to qualify, and that it "might" and "for instance" apply to nurses or forces but not to McDonalds. It was an example of the type of rule I suggested would exist and, was one of three such examples I mentioned.

As it turns out, there are indeed rules to qualify.

If a McDonalds employee is required to wear a uniform (I assume they are, but never having worked there, it's only an assumption) and IF the employee has to launder that uniform, then an deduction to reflect to the actual cost of doing so can be claimed.

Do McD's staff have to launder their own uniforms? If so, the potential for a deduction claim exists.

Then, what's the direct cost of doing so? How many uniforms? How often does it/they need to be laundered?

If someone works a few hours a week, and has one uniform that gets washed once a week as part of their normal domestic washing, then it's hard to see how much cost, if any, has been incurred.

If, on the other hand, a nurse has to maintain several uniforms and each has to be freshly laundered at the start of each shift, then he/she may incur laundry costs specifically and exclusively relating to work. And, it's possible that such laundry may be specialised, if sterilisation were part of the process. Again, I'm not a nurse so don't know what their laundry requirements are.

Also, this type of ruling often depends on a specific factor, such as whether the clothing is protective or decorative. A building site worker may be able to claim work boots as their required for health and safety, but if the McD's uniform is merely for corporate branding, then it might be that the tax rules would expect the employer to cover that cost. That turns out not to be the case, but it's the TYPE of thing that causes these rulings.

Bear in mind, much of this type of quirky detail comes not from basic tax law, but from tribunal or court rulings over specific issues. Someone claims for work clothes, the tax people disallow it, the claimant appeals or goes to court, and the tribunal/judge give a ruling based on specific facts. Then, if someone else can apply those facts to their situation, that ruling will be available to them.

So, if a nurse had made this claim and gone to court on the basis of clinical cleanliness, for example, and the court had ruled on that basis, then the ruling would apply to nurses or people that can claim that TYPE of need, but it could well not apply to uniforms of other types.

That was why I was giving an example of the type of thing I'd expect to be an issue with tax rules, based on some knowledge of other tax rules.

This type of thing is often not about what may or may not seem to be right, but about what facts were before the court or tribunal. Hence my suggestion,as an example, that it might apply to nurses but not fast food staff.

[LazyGit]

Currently you can't claim for clothing (suits etc) as the tax man says that you'd need to wear something anyway.

Not if you're self-employed. In any capacity. Even if you're employed, you can have a 'consultancy' (it does have to be legitimate and profitable but it can be anything you are good at, such as cutting hair or building computers for friends) on the side for which you claim back for all sorts of stuff including suits, meals, holidays and anything else you like. Takes some balls though.

[JPreston]

Amateurs...

Cost of buying or cleaning a suit is never deductible, for anyone - employee, sole trader, partner, doesn't matter. It's the 'wholly, necessarily, exclusively [for business]' principle that is applied to individuals and it has been established in court that a suit confers personal benefits in both warmth and decency.

Many uniforms are of course regarded differently as has been pointed out above.

Restrictions on company expenditure are far less restrictive (for want of a better word) than those applied to individuals. Eg If I fancy a coffee tomorrow, that is an allowable deduction for my company but not for me as an employee of that company. I buy a coffee out of my net pay, then my company reimburses me for that legitimate business expense arising on being out at a client's office, this reimbursement is not taxable income for me but it is a deduction in my company so between me and the company we save employer's and employee's national insurance contributions and income tax (IR35 stops me paying myself a dividend beyond 5% of turnover so I would otherwise have had to take my coffee money as salary and/or bonus, both subject to PAYE).

I mean come on, it's perfectly transparent....