Scaffolders Tax Rebate: What You Can Claim Back

A scaffolders tax rebate comes through one of two routes. Employed scaffolders appear on HMRC’s flat rate list at £140 a year for tools and specialist clothing, and can claim that or actual costs with receipts. Self-employed scaffolders on the Construction Industry Scheme (CIS) claim their costs through Self Assessment.

Here’s the bit that’s easy to miss: scaffolders are named by job title and filed under constructional engineering rather than building. Which heading you’re treated as working under can change the figure, so the industry matters as much as the trade.

Your route decides the form you fill in, the evidence you’ll need and whether relief reaches you through your tax code, a refund or your tax return. It’s worth settling before you gather a single receipt.

This guide covers scaffolders employed through PAYE and those working under CIS, including anyone who’s done both in the same tax year.

What changes the answer is who pays for your kit, whether you own or hire the scaffolding you put up, and whether you already send HMRC a tax return.

How you’re paid shapes your scaffolders tax rebate

Both routes can produce a scaffolders tax rebate, but they get there in different ways.

On PAYE, tax comes out of your wages before you see them. Relief for work costs usually reaches you through a lower tax code for the current year, and through a code change or a refund for earlier years.

Under CIS, the contractor holds back part of each payment and sends it to HMRC as an advance on your tax and National Insurance. Your costs go on your return at the end of the year, and the return shows whether those advances were too high.

Relief is a share of what you spent, not the whole amount. An employee paying 20% tax on a £100 cost gets £20 of relief, and you can’t get back more tax than you paid in that year.

Scaffolder flat rate expenses need no receipts

A flat rate expense is a fixed yearly amount that covers what you spend on the tools and clothing the job needs. You don’t send receipts with it, and you don’t have to prove each purchase.

The flat rate expenses list on GOV.UK puts scaffolders under constructional engineering, a heading that takes in buildings, shipyards, bridges and roads. The amount is £140 a year, and it has applied since 2008/09.

Your industry counts as well as your job. Where your job is listed under the industry you work in, you get that amount. Where it isn’t, HMRC can fall back to the rate for “all other workers” in your industry, which is £120 for building, and £60 applies where neither your job nor your industry appears.

At the basic rate of 20%, a £140 deduction takes £28 off your tax for the year. A higher rate taxpayer at 40% saves £56.

Wondering how big a scaffolders tax rebate the flat rate alone can produce? If you’ve never claimed it, paid tax at 20% in every year and bought your own kit, the current year plus the four before it gives five years at £28, which is £140 in total.

Two limits stop the amount stacking up. The general £60 laundry allowance is only for people without an agreed flat rate, and moving to a similar job partway through a year doesn’t let you claim the flat rate twice.

Where your employer pays towards your kit, take their share off the flat rate first.

Claim actual costs in a year your tools cost more

The flat rate isn’t a ceiling. In any year you can claim what you actually spent, then go back to the flat rate the year after.

That’s worth doing when one year’s bill runs high, for example after kit goes missing from a site. Say you replace £310 of stolen hand tools. At 20% that’s £62 of relief, £34 more than the flat rate would give for that year.

Scaffolder tools tax relief on real costs covers repairing or replacing the small tools you need for work, and the claim needs copies of receipts or other proof that you paid. The first purchase of work clothing doesn’t qualify.

Scaffolder PPE tax relief works differently under CIS

The two routes split most sharply over safety kit. If you’re employed, personal protective equipment is your employer’s cost. They should either hand it over free or refund what you paid, and there’s no tax relief on it.

Specialist clothing sits on the other side of that line. The rules on work clothing and tools give overalls and safety boots as examples you can claim to clean, repair or replace.

Self-employed scaffolders are treated differently. Protective clothing you need for the work is an allowable business expense, while ordinary clothes you happen to work in aren’t claimable on either route.

Bigger items of equipment follow their own rule. With traditional accounting they go through capital allowances, and on the cash basis they’re claimed as ordinary expenses (cars are the exception).

A scaffolder CIS tax refund comes through Self Assessment

Under CIS the contractor keeps back 20% of what counts as your pay, as long as you’re registered and they can verify you. Miss either condition and the CIS deduction rates jump to 30%, while gross payment status means nothing is taken at all.

Not every pound on an invoice counts as pay. VAT, materials you paid for yourself, consumable stores and plant hired in for the job are among the items that come out before the percentage is applied.

Owning your scaffolding changes that sum. Tube and fittings hired from a third party for the job can come out as plant hire. Kit you own can’t, because HMRC allows no notional hire charge on plant you already have.

Take a £1,000 invoice to put up and take down a scaffold, with no bought materials or VAT on it:

• With your own kit, all £1,000 is subject to deduction, so £200 is kept back at 20% and you’re paid £800.
• With £400 of that covering evidenced hire from a scaffold supplier, the deduction applies to £600, so £120 is kept back and you’re paid £880.
• Unregistered and using your own kit, you’d lose £300 at 30%.

Your return is where a self-employed scaffolders tax rebate gets settled.

The deductions from your monthly statements count as tax and National Insurance already paid, your business costs come off your takings, and HMRC repays any gap where the deductions beat the tax and National Insurance due on your profit. Any balance you still owe for a tax year is due by the following 31 January.

If you’re a sole trader, Making Tax Digital for Income Tax adds a layer to this. Once your qualifying income passes HMRC’s threshold, you keep digital records, send quarterly updates and file the year’s tax return through compatible software.

The test adds up your self-employed turnover and any rental income from your last tax return. For CIS work that turnover is your pay before deductions, so the rules can apply even when your take-home pay sits below the threshold. PAYE wages don’t count towards it.

HMRC’s online checker tells you whether, and from when, you need to use it, and the Making Tax Digital guide covers the reporting side.

If you’re self-employed, training for scaffolding work you already do, whether it refreshes your skills or adds new ones, will usually be allowable. A course to start an unrelated business is unlikely to be.

The CIS tax refund guide takes you through registering and filing.

What scaffolders can’t claim, including the commute

Some scaffolder work expenses fall outside the rules, and several depend on your route:

• If you’re employed, travel between home and a permanent workplace isn’t claimable, though travel to a temporary place of work can be.
• Costs your employer repaid in full can’t be claimed, and where they repaid part, only your share counts.
• If you’re employed, the first purchase of work clothing doesn’t qualify, only cleaning, repairing or replacing specialist clothing.
• Everyday clothes you wear for work aren’t claimable on either route.
• If you’re employed, PPE isn’t claimable at all.

For employees, scaffolder travel expenses turn on whether a site counts as temporary. The travel expenses tax relief guide explains how HMRC decides.

A scaffolder P87 claim covers four earlier years

As an employee, your claim can stretch back over four earlier tax years as well as the one you’re in. A postal claim must be made within four years of the end of the tax year it covers.

You can claim online through HMRC’s service or on paper using form P87. The postal route only covers years where your expenses come to £2,500 or less. Above £2,500 the claim goes on a Self Assessment return, and if you already file a return, you claim there instead.

Whether you need receipts comes down to the type of claim. A flat rate claim needs none, while an actual-cost claim needs copies of receipts or other proof of payment.

The tax relief for expenses of employment guide covers the online and postal routes and the details each one asks for.

Before you claim your scaffolders tax rebate

Getting a scaffolders tax rebate right starts with your route, because PAYE and CIS use different forms and different evidence.

On PAYE, check that the £140 rate for scaffolders fits the industry you work in, and keep receipts in any year your tools cost more than that. Treat PPE as your employer’s bill rather than a tax claim.

Under CIS, hold on to every monthly statement, and keep a clear record of which scaffolding you hired in and which you own, since only the hired kit comes out of the deduction.

As an employee, you can backdate to the four tax years before the current one. For the costs you share with other trades on site, the construction workers tax rebate guide sets out the wider picture.

Key Takeaways

• HMRC’s flat rate list puts scaffolders under constructional engineering at £140 a year, and employees can claim it without receipts where that industry applies.
• In any year your real costs beat the flat rate, you can claim them instead with receipts and return to the flat rate later.
• Employees can’t claim PPE, but self-employed scaffolders can claim protective clothing they need for work as a business expense.
• Under CIS, scaffolding hired from a third party can come out of the deduction as plant hire, while kit you own can’t.
• Employees can backdate a claim four tax years on top of the current one, and a postal P87 only covers years with expenses of £2,500 or less.