There are special tax deductions available to Nurses including midwives, auxiliaries, students, dental nurses, nursing assistants and healthcare assistants.
Laundry & Clothing
Uniforms are normally not a taxable benefit and often provided by the employer.
Flat Rate Laundry Expenses https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/employment-income-manual/eim32712
| a. Ambulance staff on active service | 185 | |||
| b. Nurses, midwives, chiropodists, dental nurses, occupational, speech, physiotherapists and other therapists, healthcare assistants, phlebotomists and radiographers. See guidance at EIM67200 for shoes and stockings/tights allowance | 125 | |||
| c. Plaster room orderlies, hospital porters, ward clerks, sterile supply workers, hospital domestics and hospital catering staff. | 125 | |||
| d. Laboratory staff, pharmacists and pharmacy assistants. | 80 | |||
| e. Uniformed ancillary staff: maintenance workers, grounds staff, drivers, parking attendants and security guards, receptionists and other uniformed staff. | 80 |
If you are an employee who wants to claim the laundry allowance you should send HMRC a letter as follows:
Re: Uniform Tax Rebate
I have been employed at……… since….. My job title is ……. and I wear a company uniform.
I am obliged to launder the uniform, which is supplied to me by the company. I therefor wish to claim any payment to cover the laundry costs.
The uniform provided is not suitable to be worn outside of the work environment due to having the company logo on it.
I would like to receive the rebate in the form of a cheque….
https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/employment-income-manual/eim67200
Expenses deductions may be permitted to nurses of all grades including midwives, for expenditure incurred and defrayed by them on the repair and renewal of shoes and stockings/tights:
- shoes: where the wearing of a prescribed style is obligatory in the hospital or other workplace in which they may work allow £12 per year
- stockings/tights/socks: where the wearing of a prescribed style or colour is similarly obligatory, allow £6 per year.
Mileage
Nurses may need to travel between locations and the 2013 case of Dr Samad Samadian v HMRC defined the rules for mileage claims
The results of the case in summary were:
- Home to Hospitals – Disallowed
- Hospital to Hospital – Disallowed as Business Expenses (but could be allowed against Employment)
- Visits to Patients – Allowed
Approved Tax Free rates per business mile
| Type of vehicle | First 10,000 miles | Above 10,000 miles |
|---|---|---|
| Cars and vans | 45p | 25p |
| Motorcycles | 24p | 24p |
| Bikes | 20p | 20p |
Travel to a Temporary Work Place
A workplace is a temporary workplace if an employee goes there only to perform a task of limited duration or for a temporary purpose. So even where an employee attends a workplace regularly, it will be a temporary workplace and so not a permanent workplace, if the employee attends for the purpose of performing a task of limited duration or other temporary purpose.
Limited duration is explained at EIM32080.
Temporary purpose is explained at EIM32150.
If a workplace is capable of being a temporary workplace by reference to this rule, you must consider the following additional rules:
- the 24 month rule, see EIM32080
- the fixed term appointment rule, see EIM32125
- the depots and bases rule, see EIM32160
- the area rule, see EIM32190
https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/employment-income-manual/eim32075
EIM32125 – Section 339(5) ITEPA 2003
A period of attendance at a workplace for a limited duration does not make that place a temporary workplace if the employee attends in the course of a period of continuous work (see EIM32080) that can be expected to last for all, or almost all, of the period for which he or she is likely to hold, or continue to hold, that employment. In these cases the 24 month rule (see EIM32080) is overridden and the workplace is a permanent workplace.
The legislation does not define almost all of the period of the employment. You should not normally challenge relief under this paragraph where the likely duration of work at a workplace is less than 80% of the likely duration of the employment.
https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/employment-income-manual/eim32125
Professional fees and subscriptions
Professional Fee and subscriptions Royal College of Nursing (under N) are reclaimable and HMRC have a list of approved fees
Training & Courses
Doctors & Nurses often agree to pay for their own continuing training personally because of a shortage of NHS funds but when they do pay for courses its unlikely they will be able to claim tax relief.
EIM32530 states that it is well established that employees are not entitled to an expenses deduction under Section 336 ITEPA 2003 for the expenses continuing professional education (CPE). The Commissioners and the Courts have traditionally held that the duties of trainee doctors, for the purpose of the expenses rule, are limited to the clinical work that they do for the NHS Trust by whom they are employed. Their training activities are not undertaken “in the performance of” those duties for the purpose of Section 336 . That is so even though the training activities may be compulsory, and failure to complete them may lead to the employee losing his or her professional qualifications, and/or their job.
The Commissioners and the Courts upheld that view in a number of cases, as follows:
Parikh v Sleeman (63TC75) – a hospital doctor was refused relief for the expenses of attending training courses during periods of study leave.
Snowdon v Charnock (SpC282) – a specialist registrar was refused relief for the expenses of undergoing mandatory personal psychotherapy.
Consultant Psychiatrist v CIR (SpC557) – an NHS consultant was refused relief for the expenses of CPE necessary to maintain her professional qualification.
Decadt v CRC (TL3792) – a specialist registrar was refused relief for the expenses of taking professional examinations, even though it was a condition of his employment that he should do so.
In the recent case of Revenue & Customs Commissioners v Dr Piu Banerjee ([2010] EWCA Civ. 843), the Court of Appeal accepted that a deduction for training costs incurred by an employee should be allowed if the employee was employed on a training contract where training was an intrinsic contractual duty of the employment (see also EIM32535 & EIM32546) and where any personal benefit, unlike most CPE courses, would be incidental and not therefore give rise to a dual purpose of the expenditure.
Salary Sacrifice solves this problem.
Salary sacrifice works particularly well for training because except in the most extreme cases, employees cannot claim a tax deduction for training costs that they pay personally but if the employer pays for training that is work-related:
- the employer gets the tax deduction
- the employee is not taxed on the cost and
- there is no National Insurance to pay.
EIM01210 confirms this.
