Claim tax back on your professional expenses
If you're a UK taxpayer, you may be eligible to reclaim tax on common professional expenses. The process doesn’t have to be complicated; our tax relief tool helps you take control of your claim and ensure you’re not leaving money on the table.
Eligible expenses for tax relief
Here are some examples of what you can claim for:
Reclaim tax on your annual membership fees to organisations such as the BMA, GMC, and Royal Colleges.
Tips:
- Download your BMA tax receipts
- Explore a complete list of HMRC-approved professional bodies (note organisation names may not appear as expected – e.g. the Royal College of General Practitioners is listed under ‘General Practitioners Royal College of’)
The maintenance, repair or replacement of items of medical equipment or protective clothing may attract tax relief however, the initial purchase of new items will not be allowable.
The expense must be incurred wholly, exclusively and necessarily in the performance of your duties. For the ‘necessarily’ test to be satisfied, the item of equipment must be essential for your duties. To assess this HMRC can apply a reasonableness test, that every other person doing your role would be expected to need that specific item. This can be difficult to satisfy if there are variations in quality of equipment available, for example, you have a top of the range item when a more basic one is available and could be used to do your job – in this case your item may not be necessary and therefore may not be allowable.
If you use your own vehicle or stay overnight for work-related duties, these costs may be eligible for tax relief.
Eligible travel includes where you need to make a journey in the performance of your duties but does not include the home to work commute to permanent places of employment.
Examples of allowable mileage would be:
- where your employer has more than one base and you are required as part of your duties to travel between the sites / hospitals
- travel from your employer's base to a temporary workplace, such as visiting a patient at their home
- travel from your home to a temporary workplace provided that the journey is not part of your normal commute, i.e. it is not on the way to your permanent place of work.
- where any allowable business mileage has been fully reimbursed by your employer, there will be no further tax relief due. if your employer has reimbursed you in excess of the approved HMRC rate, then you will be liable to tax on the excess.
Potentially allowable:
- Costs incurred during external training and exams may be allowable when there is a contractual duty to train, such as under a medical registrar training contract.
- Exam fees and course fees incurred that are mandatory requirements of your employment contract may be allowable expenses. This includes Royal College exam fees if you are on a training scheme that will lead to a CCT in that specialty.
- Expenses can be claimed in the year that the cost is incurred. This can include resit exams. Travel to and from exams and associated overnight expenses may also be allowable.
Not allowable:
- Update courses that are not contractual obligations are not allowable. Revision courses will also not be allowable.
Effortlessly complete your claim with our member exclusive tax relief tool.
We've collaborated with Sandison Easson, our trusted medical accountancy partner, to bring you a tool that simplifies the claims process. This tool saves you time by guiding you through each step of the claim form and highlighting possible deductions you may not have considered.
Please note that this tool is not suitable for self-employed doctors who should instead claim through self-assessment.
To use the tool:
1. Complete each section of the tool
2. Be prompted at each stage for the evidence you’ll need to submit
3. Download, print, or email yourself a copy of your completed form
4. Send your form along with any required evidence to HMRC
Log in to start your claim
When to claim/large claims
When to claim
You can claim for the current tax year and the four previous tax years. Tax years run from 6 April to 5 April, so you may wish to wait until the end of a tax year to accrue all expenses, otherwise, you can submit an amend to an already submitted claim.
Large claims
For claims over £2,500 in a single tax year, you'll need to file a self-assessment. It may be worth seeking the advice of an accountant in this instance. Sandison Easson can assist if you need guidance on larger claims.
Understanding your tax code
Tax codes can often seem highly confusing, with various combinations of numbers and letters that to the untrained eye seem baffling. Learn what some of the more common codes mean.
- S – If a code includes the prefix ‘S’ then income is being taxed under the Scottish tax rates.
- L – Any tax code with numbers followed by the letter ‘L’ is allocating an amount of tax-free personal allowance to you. The numbers represent the tax-free amount, but please note that the last digit is always missed off, so you can effectively multiply the number in the code by 10 to approximate the tax-free amount granted.
- 1257L – This is the code that allocates the standard tax-free personal allowance of £12,570. Earnings above £1,047 per month, or £242 if paid weekly, will be subject to deductions of tax. The level of deductions will depend on earnings.
- A number higher than 1257 followed by an L: If you have a number greater than 1257 followed by an L, it indicates that you are receiving additional tax relief within your tax code. This often happens after an expense claim, where HMRC assume that expenses will continue in future years.
- A number lower than 1257 followed by an L: If you have a number less than 1257 followed by an L, it indicates that you are receiving less tax relief within your code. This could be for several reasons and some examples include taxable benefits received other than pay; underpaid tax for a prior year being collected from the current year’s income; additional untaxed income; a second employment with insufficient tax collected on the tax code being operated on the second employment.
- BR – All income is taxed at the basic rate of tax.
- D0 – All income is taxed at the higher rate of tax.
- D1 – All income is taxed at the additional rate of tax.
- SD0 – All income is taxed at the intermediate rate in Scotland.
- SD1 – All income is taxed at the higher rate in Scotland.
- SD2 – All income is taxed at the top rate in Scotland.
- K or SK in Scotland – A code with numbers followed by a ‘K’ or after ‘SK’ is essentially the opposite of an L code, so instead of deducting a tax-free amount, an additional amount is added before tax is applied. This can be the case if there has been an underpayment of tax that exceeds the tax-free personal allowance and most commonly, where there is more than one employment post held and the tax code on the other post is collecting insufficient tax.
- T – A code with a ‘T’ is applied where a separate calculation of the tax-free personal allowance will be required, and the amount will be under review by HMRC. This is usually where annual income is expected to exceed £100,000 and the tax-free personal allowance will be tapered downwards based on earnings levels.
- 0T – All of the tax-free personal allowance has been used.
- X suffix – The suffix ‘X’ indicates that HMRC will review the tax code at the end of the year.
- M1 / W1 / NONCUM suffix – These suffixes denote that earning prior to the current period are not considered in the calculation of tax deducted in the current period.
- CUMUL suffix – This is the opposite of the NONCUM suffix. A cumulative tax code will consider all earnings from the employment post in the tax year to date.
For more information about your specific tax code, you can find help from HMRC, including a tax code checker: gov.uk/tax-codes
If you believe that your tax code may be incorrect then you should contact HMRC. Explaining your expected earnings from all sources to HMRC, including which source is your main source of income, can help HMRC to apply the correct codes. You should have to hand your most recent payslips so that you can estimate income for the remainder of the tax year. You will need to tell them what your taxable pay is expected to be. This usually equates to all pay components (basic pay, additional activities, on-call supplements, overtime, backpay etc.) less your employee and added years pension contributions, less any salary sacrifice schemes. You can find the monthly and year to date figures for taxable pay on your payslips.
Completing the P87 tax claim form yourself
If you would prefer to complete a tax form without using our tool, you can find information about how to do so on the HMRC website.