Thousands of Brits could be owed a £3,000 HMRC tax refund – how to claim it

People who have never claimed a refund can backdate a tax claim four years – and you could be owed thousands of pounds back. The UK tax year begins on April 6th each year and ends on April 5th of the following year

Thousands of people living in the UK could be entitled to thousands of pounds worth of tax refunds from HMRC.

New data from RIFT Tax Refunds shows the average annual tax refund for both employed and self-employed Britons is £929.

However, people who have never requested a refund can backdate a tax claim four years ago.

RIFT says someone reclaiming this far could get back more than £3,000 on average.

The UK tax year begins on April 6th each year and ends on April 5th of the following year.

Of course, the amount you could actually get back from the IRS depends on how much tax you owe.

But any money repaid is likely to be welcomed by families during the cost-of-living crisis.

Inflation hit a new 40-year high of 9% last month, while workers were also hit by an increase in Social Security.

Social Security contributions just went up 1.25 percentage points from 12% to 13%.

Check that you are in the correct tax code

You may be entitled to a refund if you overpaid tax.

One of the most common cases in which this happens is when you are accidentally put on the wrong tax number – for example when you have just changed jobs.

Your tax code is a combination of numbers and letters and is used by HMRC to determine how much tax you should pay each month.

Did you manage to claim back £1,000 in taxes? Let us know: levi.winchester@reachplc.com

If you have only one employer and earn less than £100,000 your code is probably 1257L.

The fastest way to check your tax number is to look at your payslip, P45 or P60 form.

If you’ve lost track of these, the Gov.uk website also has a dedicated web page where you can see your tax number.

Once you know which tax number you belong to, you can compare it with a free online tax number calculator.

savings expert just updated his calculator to give you a rough idea if yours is correct.

No tax calculator will be able to tell you for sure if you’re on the right code – but this should give you a good indication.

If you suspect you have paid too much you can contact HMRC on 0300 200 3300. You can also speak to an advisor online using their live chat service.

HMRC will then contact your employer to correct your tax number and you will be refunded any tax owed on your next payslip.

If you have paid too much tax for a long time, you can claim back up to four more years – i.e. starting with the tax year 2018/19.

The bad news is that if you underpaid, you’ll have to pay your taxes back. It’s best to sort this out sooner rather than later.

More tax refund options

If you’ve been working from home during the pandemic, you may also be able to reclaim tax on the additional costs of being away from the office.

You can claim a tax credit of £6 per week if you were forced to work from home in tax years 2019/2020 or 2021/2022.

The amount you get back is based on the rate at which you pay tax.

For example, if you pay the 20% property tax rate, you’ll get £1.20 a week in tax relief – this adds up to around £60 a year.

If you pay a higher tax rate your relief is 40% or £2.40 per week – so around £125 for the year.

You can also get money back from the tax office if you have not applied for a marriage tax credit.

The Marriage Tax Allowance allows eligible couples to transfer £1,260 of their personal allowance to their spouse or domestic partner to help reduce their annual tax bill.

Your personal allowance is the amount you can earn tax-free in each tax year – the standard rate is currently £12,570 before you pay tax.

The marriage tax credit for tax year 2022/23 is up to £252 – but if you can make a claim for all four previous tax years you could get back £1,242.

The amounts you can claim back for previous tax years are slightly less than the current tax year.

Finally, you may also be owed taxes if you have received a PPI payout.

Most banks and lenders automatically deduct taxes from PPI payouts, although not everyone is required to pay them.

When the payouts were made, the banks refunded the PPI premium plus 8% statutory interest.

The statutory interest portion is taxed as a savings deposit and automatically deducted by most companies.

But since April 2016, thanks to the introduction of the personal savings deduction, more people have been able to get part of this tax back.

This allows base-rate taxpayers to earn £1,000 a year in tax-free interest on their savings, or £500 for higher-rate taxpayers.