A new job, an unfamiliar tax code or a pile of work expenses can leave you wondering whether you have paid too much tax. That question can be especially easy to overlook when you move between startup roles, work remotely or travel to meet clients.
A useful check starts with the tax year and your HMRC record, then tests each possible claim against the rules. An unusual payslip is a reason to investigate, not proof that a refund is due.
Start With Your HMRC Record, Not A Guess
Sign in to your HMRC Personal Tax Account or use the HMRC app. Check your current tax code, HMRC’s estimate of your income and the employment details it holds. You can also review records of income and tax paid for previous years. Compare those figures with your payslips and P60s, noting which tax year each document covers.
Digital access makes it quicker to spot a missing job or an income estimate that no longer reflects your circumstances, but keep the documents you need to explain any difference.
Separate two questions: is your current PAYE tax code taking the right amount from your pay, and did you overpay in an earlier year?
Correcting a code may change future deductions without producing a payment for the past. If you are asking ‘am I owed a tax rebate?’, there are various guides which can offer a way to work through common PAYE reasons before deciding whether to make a claim.
Work expense relief also needs realistic expectations. HMRC does not normally repay the entire cost of an eligible item. The relief is based on the tax paid on that expense. For example, £60 of qualifying costs would mean £12 in tax relief for someone paying tax at 20%, provided the other claim conditions are met.
Check What Happened When You Changed Jobs
PAYE deductions can look odd when you start a new role, take a second job or leave one employer partway through a tax year. Your new payroll team may not initially have all the information needed to calculate your tax on a cumulative basis. An emergency tax code can therefore result in a higher deduction on a particular payslip. It does not, by itself, establish that you are owed a refund for the whole year.
Find your P45 from the job you left, then compare its pay and tax figures with your new payslips and HMRC record. If the year has ended, your P60 shows the pay and tax recorded by that employer for the tax year.
With two jobs, check both sets of figures rather than assuming one employer’s P60 covers everything. Look for an old job still appearing as current, a missing employment or an income estimate that is much higher than you expect.
If your employer’s payslip figures appear wrong, raise the discrepancy with payroll. If HMRC’s record is out of date, you can update employment or income details through its online services. Once the information is corrected, a current-year overpayment may be dealt with through later PAYE deductions. Previous-year overpayments need to be considered against the figures for the relevant year.
Review Work Costs That May Qualify
For employment expenses, start with what you paid yourself and whether your employer reimbursed you. The cost must meet HMRC’s rules for your job. A company policy allowing an expense does not automatically make it eligible for tax relief, and a receipt alone does not establish a claim.
If you use your own car or van for work journeys, distinguish business travel from your ordinary commute. Travel to a temporary work location or between workplaces may qualify; routine travel from home to a permanent workplace generally does not. For the tax year beginning 6 April 2026, HMRC’s mileage rules for employees use 55p per business mile for the first 10,000 miles in a car or van, then 25p per mile.
The first 10,000-mile rate was 45p before 6 April 2026, so do not apply the newer rate to an older claim. Deduct any mileage payments from your employer when working out the amount on which you may claim relief. Keep a log recording why you travelled and the start and end postcodes.
Uniforms, specialist work clothing and tools are another check. A required uniform or small tools you need to do your job may qualify if you paid the cost yourself. Ordinary clothes you could wear outside work do not become eligible because you wear them in the office.
Your employer should provide necessary personal protective equipment rather than leave you to seek tax relief for it. Keep receipts if you are claiming actual costs rather than an applicable flat-rate allowance.
Finally, check professional membership fees if membership is necessary for your work or the professional body is approved by HMRC and relevant to your job. You must have paid the eligible fee yourself. If your employer paid it, you cannot claim it again. Retain evidence showing the organisation, the amount and the year of payment.
Treat Homeworking And Marriage Allowance As Separate Checks
Working from home does not create an automatic tax claim. From 6 April 2026, employees can no longer claim working-from-home tax relief for the 2026/27 tax year. Eligible claims for earlier years can still be considered within the applicable time limit. For those years, HMRC’s homeworking conditions required you to work at home, for example because your employer had no office. Choosing to work remotely under a flexible or hybrid arrangement was not enough.
If you are checking an earlier year, establish why you had to work at home and whether you bore qualifying additional household costs. A general share of rent or broadband used privately does not qualify as a work expense. The £6 weekly flat-rate amount relates to eligible claims up to and including 2025/26, not to the current tax year.
Marriage Allowance is a different matter. It may help a married couple or civil partners when one person’s income is usually below their Personal Allowance and the other meets the applicable tax-rate conditions. Under Marriage Allowance, the lower earner can transfer £1,260 of their Personal Allowance, reducing their partner’s tax by up to £252 for a tax year.
Check both partners’ income for each year rather than assuming that eligibility this year applied throughout the past. A backdated claim can cover eligible years from 2022/23 within the current claim window.
Check The Deadline Before Choosing How To Claim
As at 15 October 2026, the four previous tax years available for an eligible job expense claim start with 2022/23. That makes 2022/23 the oldest year to check alongside 2023/24, 2024/25, 2025/26 and the current 2026/27 tax year where the particular relief still applies.
Claims for 2020/21 and 2021/22 are outside that window. Sorting documents by tax year matters: both the mileage rate and the homeworking rules change depending on when an expense arose.
For qualifying employment expenses, HMRC’s online claim service or form P87 is generally the route if the claim is for no more than £2,500 in a tax year. A larger claim generally requires Self Assessment.
If you already complete a Self Assessment tax return, include eligible employment expenses there instead. Before submitting anything, gather payslips or P60s, receipts where required and a mileage log if you are claiming for travel. Your Personal Tax Account and the HMRC app can speed up the initial review, but neither replaces evidence of what you spent.
You can make an eligible claim directly through HMRC. If you prefer help with PAYE paperwork, Taxpro is an HMRC-registered tax agent that handles refund claims. For PAYE claims, its fee is 37.5% plus VAT, no refund no fee.
Whichever route you choose, begin with the HMRC record, identify the tax year and check each possible expense or allowance against its own rules. That gives you a clearer answer than treating every surprising deduction as a refund waiting to happen.
—TechRound does not recommend or endorse any financial, investment, tax, or other advice, practices, companies or operators. All articles are purely informational—
