All about income tax and tax refunds

3 mins

You may have been reading through our handy guides section and be wondering “what about me? Can I claim a tax refund even though my profession hasn’t been mentioned?”. We at DSR Tax Refunds strive to take the hassle out of your tax matters so we have created this guide to tell you everything you need to know about income tax rebates. You can also check out our handy online calculator to see if you are entitled to a tax refund or call our friendly and professional team on 0330 122 9972 and let us help you out.

What are tax rebates?

Basically, if you have had to spend your own money as a part of doing your job then you should be able to claim this money back and often the way that this happens is through a tax rebate or refund. These expenses could be travel expenses to a temporary workplace or accommodation or food costs incurred as a result of you working somewhere other than your usual workplace.

There are a number of expenses that you might incur as a part of doing your job that you might be able to claim a tax rebate for. These are costs that you shouldn’t have to foot the bill for and that is where we can help – call our helpful team on 0330 122 9972 and let us get the ball rolling.

What everyone should know about tax

Whether you are employed by someone else or self-employed, once you are earning a particular level of income you are obliged to pay tax on your earnings – that is an portion of your earnings which goes back to the government. The government department responsible for all taxation matters is HMRC. If you are employed by an employer, you will most likely pay tax through the PAYE (Pay As You Earn) system and this will be taken from your wages by your employer. You will get a tax code, which tells your employer how much tax to deduct from your wages.

If you are self-employed then you will be expected to sort out your own tax affairs through the use of the self-assessment system.

Everyone is entitled to what is called a personal allowance, also known as a tax-free allowance – this is the amount of money you are entitled to earn before you are expected to pay tax on your earnings. If your earnings are lower than your personal allowance then you do not have to pay any tax on those earnings. If they are higher than your personal allowance then you pay tax on any earnings above your personal allowance. This personal allowance is currently set at £12,500 per year.

What can you do if you have paid too much tax?

It can be worrying to think that you have paid too much tax and that your hard-earned cash is currently swelling the HMRC coffers, but you shouldn’t worry – if you have paid too much tax, you are entitled to claim it back. Sometimes HMRC will set your tax code too high (maybe because you started work part way through a tax year) and you will pay too much tax through the PAYE system. And sometimes you are entitled to claim tax relief on your work-based expenses – for example, if you have to travel to a temporary workplace as a part of your job then you are entitled to claim those costs back.

We at DSR Tax Refunds know how tricky it can be to work out what you might be entitled to claim for and what you can’t claim for – after all, we are tax experts who specialise in getting you your maximum refund and fast. So, if our online calculator says that you are entitled to some money back from HMRC, give our friendly team a call on 0330 122 9972 and let’s get your hard-earned money back to you where it belongs.

This page was last updated on 09/04/2019.

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