Over the last two years many people have been required to work from home. HMRC relaxed the rules around claiming the cost of this either via employers making an extra payment or an update to your tax code. Effectively, if you worked from home for a single ay during the 2020-2021 or 2021-2022 tax years you could claim this (more information here, if you need to look at your tax code retrospectively).
The government has updated the rules for this financial year. You now have to fulfil slightly more stringent criteria to claim either the cost of working from home or a flat £6 a week figure.
You now can claim an update to your tax code if you HAVE to work from home. This could be because your employer requires you to work from home some of the time.
You CANNOT use the following reasons:
- your employment contract lets you work from home some or all of the time.
- you work from home because of COVID-19.
- your employer has an office, but you cannot go there sometimes because it’s full.
My suggestion is that if you need clarity, you should request a written confirmation from your employer. You can then confirm if you are required to work from home for some or all of the time or is it a choice.
You can see the full government guidance here