P87 Form – Fill Out and Use This PDF

Tax relief for expenses of employment

If you are an employee use this form to tell us about employment expenses you have had to pay during the year for which tax relief is due.

Only fill in this form if your allowable expenses are less than £2,500 for the year.

If your claim is more than £2,500, you will need to fill in a Self Assessment tax return. Please contact the Self Assessment Helpline on 0300 200 3310 or register at www.hmrc.gov.uk/online

You must fill in a separate P87 for each employment for which you are claiming.

For all claims make sure that you tell us the year of claim, fill in section 1 and sign and date the declaration at section 10. We will return any incomplete or incorrect forms; this will delay your claim.

If you have not paid any tax during the year no refund will be due.

1 Personal and employment details for which expenses claim relates

2 Flat rate expenses

Flat rate expenses are claimed by individuals who incur expenditure on the maintenance, repair or replacement of work equipment and specialist clothing. These are agreed with the trade unions and are intended to represent the average annual expense incurred by employees. They are an alternative to claiming actual expenditure and there is no need to keep records, receipts or make annual claims.

Fill in section 6 if you want to claim more than the flat rate expense – you will need to keep records and receipts.

If your employer reimburses any costs, this should be deducted from the allowable rate. For more information about the allowance rates for each industry, go to www.hmrc.gov.uk/flatexpenses

3 Vehicles and expenses of using your own vehicle for work

You can request tax relief for expenses if you use your own car, van or motorcycle for business mileage.

You cannot claim for miles travelled between your home and a permanent workplace. Most people only have one place where they go to work, that place is their permanent workplace, this is the case even if the employment is casual or temporary.

You cannot use this section to claim for miles travelled in a company vehicle – see other expenses at section 6.

Box 2 plus box 3

•Any payments you receive from your employer for using your own vehicle for business mileage are called mileage allowance payments and must be shown in box 8.

•If your employer pays mileage allowance payments to you which are more than the rates shown in the table above, you will be liable to tax on the excess.

•Expenses directly connected to a business journey such as parking or tolls should be included in section 6. These costs cannot be claimed if they are incurred during ordinary commuting to your normal workplace.

•For definitions of

–‘business mileage’ go to www.hmrc.gov.uk/mileagerelief

–‘ordinary commuting’ and ‘permanent workplace’ go to www.hmrc.gov.uk/travelrelief

•You should keep records of your business mileage, including locations of journeys undertaken, distances travelled and the total amount of mileage allowance payments you have received.

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Expenses repaid to you

If your employer or any other person paid back any expenses, enter the amounts paid to you in the box ‘Amount repaid to you’ in each section.

4 Professional subscriptions

Fill in section 4 if you had to pay fees to carry on your profession or paid subscriptions to professional bodies related to your work. For more information, go to www.hmrc.gov.uk/subsrelief where you can find the list of approved professional organisations.

5 Hotel and meal expenses

Accommodation, meals and business phone calls in hotels may be allowable, but newspapers, bar bills, personal phone calls and laundry will not be. You must keep records and receipts.

Amounts you have spent on hotels and meals on business trips

For each overnight stay give the date, where you stayed and the amount you spent. For frequent business trips, give the total number of stays and amounts spent for the year.

6 Other expenses

Fill in section 6 if you have incurred any other allowable expenses in your employment excluding business entertainment. For details of allowable expenses. go to www.hmrc.gov.uk/expensesrelief

Company vehicles

If you pay for fuel whilst using a company vehicle for business journeys you can claim for the actual cost of business fuel but only if any amount reimbursed by your employer is less than your actual business fuel cost. The calculation of your claim must use your actual fuel costs and not any set mileage rates published by us or any other organisation. Please attach a summary of your calculation with any claim.

The mileage rates at section 3 are designed to cover the total cost of using your own vehicle; you cannot claim any further general motor expenses such as MOT, tyres etc.

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7 General expense allowances received

If you received general expense allowances from your employer, rather than separate amounts for individual expenses, enter the total amounts received and the types of expenses covered.

8 Total expenses

In this section please work out the total amount of expenses that you are claiming.

9 How you want to be paid any money we owe you

Not everyone gets a refund. If we owe you any money, we can either pay it to you or someone else on

your behalf. This is known as a ‘nominee’. Fill in the relevant section below to tell us how you want to be paid.

10 Declaration

You must sign this declaration.

The information I have given on this form is true and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief. If you give false information you could be prosecuted.

I claim repayment of any tax due.

Do not send any paperwork with this form unless you are claiming fuel costs in a company car (see page 3, section 6 of this form). Before you send this form to us, we recommend that you take a copy of your completed form. We may need to write to you for more information to support your claim. Please return the completed form to HM Revenue & Customs, Pay As You Earn Self Assessment, PO Box 1970, Liverpool, L75 1WX.

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