Just WEEKS left to claim cash boost worth up to £2k – are you eligible?

THE tax year is coming to an end but there’s still time to take advantage of schemes that could give you a cash boost.

Claiming tax back and other perks could make you as much as £2,000 better off, but you’ll need to act fast.

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The tax year runs from April to April rather than following the calendar year.

The current 2021/22 tax year will end on April 5 and the new tax year 2022/23 will start on April 6.

Each year you get certain allowances and tax breaks that could make you better off.

And for some if you don’t use then you lose it, so it’s worth checking now what you could claim.

With the cost of living taking a larger chunk of household budgets and bills set to rise further in April it could give your finances a much-needed boost.

Here we explain what you can claim and how to do it…

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Marriage allowance

Up to 4.2million couples are eligible for the marriage tax allowance which could be worth up to £1,220.

The tax relief lets married couples and those in civil partnerships share their personal tax allowances and it’s estimated the more than 2million are missing out on the cash.

To get is, one partner must earn less than the tax-free personal allowance of £12,570 this year, meaning they pay no tax at all. The other must be a basic-rate taxpayer.

You can transfer up to a maximum of £1,260 of the unused allowance, which would mean saving £252 off your income tax bill this year.

You can also backdate your claim for up to four years – as long as you met the criteria in each of them too.

So you need to claim before April 5 this year to get the tax back from 2017/18, or you’ll miss out on it.

If you can claim this year and the previous four years it’s worth £1,220.

You can apply for the marriage allowance online at gov.uk/apply-marriage-allowance.

Work from home tax relief

Millions more people have claimed tax back after working from home during the pandemic.

But there are still many people who haven’t and they could be missing out on as much as £500.

Basic-rate taxpayers can get £62.40 a year and higher-rate taxpayers £124.80 a year.

You can claim for this tax year and the pervious tax year if you had to work from home for at least one day in each of these years.

You can backdate claims by up to four years, so you could claim up to £500, if you pay tax at a higher rate and £250 at the basic rate.

The eligibility is slightly different for pre-pandemic years, and you claim for each week you worked from home.

HMRC has an online tool to help you submit a claim for both pandemic tax years.

Uniform tax rebate

If you wear a uniform for work and your employer doesn’t pay for it, you could be entitled to claim tax back on the cost.

You can claim tax back on £60 a year worth of uniform costs, so for basic rate taxpayers that’s £12 a year and for higher rate taxpayers that’s £24 a year.

It’s another tax rebate you can claim for the previous four years, if you’re entitled in the year your claiming for.

So there’s a a deadline of April 5 for making a claim for the 2017/18 tax year.

Savings allowances

Savers will want to make the most of their ISA allowances before the end of the tax year.

An ISA (individual savings account) is a type of savings account where you don’t pay any tax on interest earned.

Each year you get an allowance which is the total amount you can save into it each year to take advantage of this tax benefit.

You can save up to £20,000 each year into an ISA and if you don’t use it up you can’t carry it over to the next year.

First-time buyers saving into a Lifetime ISA (LISA) can save up to £4,000 into this account each year tax-free.

Junior ISAs, known as JISAs for short, are savings accounts for kids that work in the same way.

But the amount you can save into one tax-free each year is less at £9,000.

As the balance in an ISA grows though, it remains free from tax year after year.

If you put your cash in a bog standard bank account that’s not an ISA, you’ll be taxed on any interest over £1,000 if you’re a basic-rate taxpayer.

For higher rate taxpayers it’s £500 while additional rate taxpayers don’t get this allowance, which is known as the personal savings allowance (PSA).

The ISA tax-free allowance is more generous than the PSA which is useful if you have more saved.

Check your tax code

If your tax code was wrong and you overpaid tax in the 2017/18 tax year you’ll need to claim it by April 5 this year.

Tax code mistakes can happen if you change job or started receiving benefits and it’s up to you to spot any error and tell HMRC.

There’s a limit of four years on claiming back overpaid tax, so it’s your last chance to fix any error and get money back for 2017/18.

How much you get back will depend on how much you overpaid.

Here’s how you can claim a rebate from HMRC if you think your owed tax back.

This post first appeared on thesun.co.uk