Uniform Laundering Tax Allowance

[Mummywheel]

Are there any MN who have successfully claimed back the tax on laundering your uniform and how did you go about it? I am a Hotel Receptionist and have had my suit cleaned/laundered at a cost to myself for the past 10 years.

I used to claim it when I worked in Sainsburys. I phoned the tax office to ask about it. It was a few years ago.

There was a thread about it a few weeks ago. There's a tax credit for uniformed workers on the HMRC website somewhere.

It's really easy to do, just phone HMRC and they'll advise you. However you can only go back about 5 years iirc.

I think DP wrote a letter asking for it. While they did that, they looked again at his tax for those years and we got a nice rebate.

I claimed mine back through a company called u-tax, they did it all for me. (If i'm correct, it's the last 4 years you can claim for). Like gallicgirl's experience I was overpaying tax too so they sorted that for me at the same time. Well worth giving it ago, whichever route you take.

I just phoned the tax office, got a form and filled it in. Have been claiming it for years.

Also claim for RCN and NMC subscriptions as well.

I think Martin Lewis - moneysavingexpert chap - has info on the website too

Its so easy to claim it. If you want to claim for the current tax year you can do that via telephone, your tax code will be adjusted accordingly.
If you wish to claim a refund for previous years you must make a claim in writing, you must however state in your claim that you wish to claim a repayment for the previous years otherwise they may make an adjustment in your current years tax code to give you the repayment via your salary. You will just say slightly less tax each month/week if it goes into your tax code and your unlikely to see the benefit.
In your claim you must provide your company name, job title, whether or not your employer has their own laundry and if they give you any payments or tokens towards cleaning your uniform. If you have had numerous jobs you must include this information for each job you wore a uniform.
If you pay any subscriptions that are necessary for your job you may also be able to claim tax relief on those payments, just provide the name of the professional body you pay subscriptions to and the amount you pay each year.
Laundry tax relief is a standard amount depending on your occupation.
Don't use companies to claim it back as they take a percentage of your claim and in some cases charge a fixed fee to claim for you, you could end up with very little or none of your money. And they just send a standard letter to HMRC on your behalf. They don't do much at all yet make thousand.
Its just so easy for you to write yourself to claim and if further information is required you will be told exactly what is needed.
Plus all these companies ask you to sign a form to say they receive whatever repayment is due and take their percentage from the whole amount. The claim they send is likely to get a refund, if eligible, of around £60, but in some cases you may be due a further refund for other reasons, being out of work, wrong codes operated etc and these companies take their share of the whole amount. One company charges 40% of claims. They expect a uniform claim to be around £60, therefore they make £24 from your claim, but if it turns out you are owed £5000 they benefit hugely by taking £2000 of that for getting you to sign a form and sending a standard letter to HMRC.
Its so easy to do yourself.
Visit HMRC website for further info and address to send your claim.
Sorry for the essay....just want to make it clear how little tax claim companies do for people, they exploit peoples lack of knowledge about tax and take their money for little or no work on their behalf. Hope its been useful.

The earliest year you can claim for now is 2008-2009. You won't receive anything for any earlier years.

Yes I did it.

The hmrc site has the form to print out.

They adjust ur tax code, and will adjust for previous years or refund u. It was easy.