Medics Money Tax Rebate Guide

A Guide to Claiming Tax Relief
on Your Professional Expenses

Part II: Claiming Tax Relief on Professional
Expenses
© Medics Money Limited December 2018 Updated April 2022
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v1.0
Guidance for Claiming Tax Relief on
Professional Expenses: Part II
Before You Start

This is the second part of your guide to claiming tax relief on your professional expenses which
you have incurred as a doctor. In Part II we will guide you through making your claim. Please
note this guide applies to employed trainees. If you are self-employed, working via Limited
company or Specialty doctors and associate specialists (SAS doctors) the rules are different and
we STRONGLY recommend you take advice from a suitably qualified accountant. Note that if
you already complete a self-assessment tax return you should claim your professional expenses
on your self-assessment tax return rather than using the Personal Tax Account. That said, you
may still find some useful information in this guide
This assumes that you already have a Personal Tax Account set up - if you do not, please
download Part I (Setting up a Personal Tax Account with HMRC) here:
https://www.medicsmoney.co.uk/personal-tax-account-setup-for-doctors/
Note if you have already made a claim in previous tax years and only wish to notify HMRC of a
change in the amount of professional expenses you will incur, you may prefer to alter your tax
code on your Personal Tax Account and the following link will help you to do so:
https://www.medicsmoney.co.uk/updating-professional-expenses/
If you do use the above link, keep reading as you will still find very useful information in the
rest of the guide. If you are claiming for the first time, claiming for one off expenses (such as
exams) or claiming for multiple years then you should claim using the below.
Assuming you will be using this guide to claim your professional expenses:
• Before you start we recommend you gather together details of the professional expenses
which you would like to claim. Page 3 details the usual expenses which can be claimed as
an aide memoire. Don't worry if you cannot find details of these expenses - page 3 also
tells you how to obtain this information.
• You can claim for the previous FOUR tax years with a tax year running from 6 April to 5
April the following year. You can also make a claim for the current tax year that we are in
e.g. if you make the claim in July 2022 you can claim for:
• The tax year 6 April 2018 to 5 April 2019
• The current tax year 6 April 2022 to 5 April 2023. You may wish to hold off with
this year until after 5 April 2023 however as you may incur further expenses later
in the year.
• An expense should be claimed in the tax year in which it is incurred. If you pay in
instalments, still make the claim in the tax year the instalment was paid. For example, if
you paid £200 in March 2021 and £250 in May 2021 for an exam in June 2021 you would
claim £200 in the 2020/21 tax year and £250 in the 2021/2022 tax year.
• IMPORTANT: IF YOUR PROFESSIONAL EXPENSES EXCEED £2,500 IN A TAX YEAR YOU

CANNOT USE THIS FORM TO CLAIM TAX RELIEF FOR THAT TAX YEAR. INSTEAD YOU WILL
NEED TO COMPLETE A TAX RETURN UNDER SELF ASSESSMENT. WE WOULD
RECOMMEND THAT YOU USE AN ACCOUNTANT TO DO THIS AS THERE COULD BE
SUBSTANTIAL PENALTIES IF YOU GET YOUR TAX RETURN WRONG. WE CAN HELP YOU
FIND AN ACCOUNTANT - PLEASE CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING LINK TO GET STARTED:
https://www.medicsmoney.co.uk/accountant-search/
What can I claim?

Before you start, gather together details of all your professional expenses for each tax year. You
will also need details of your employers over each tax year - you can find these on your P60 or
P45 documents or on your payslips.
Expenses that you can claim for will usually include:
Your Royal College membership fee for each year
Your GMC fees including any CCT fees paid
Any examination fees incurred for your Royal College exams if you were on an approved
training scheme which will, or has, led to a CCT in that specialty. You can claim for re-sits
as well. You should also be able to claim for associated costs of the examination incurred
on the day such as travel to the exam or hotel costs (note you cannot claim for revision
courses)
British Medical Association fees if applicable
Medical Defence Union or Medical Protection Society or other medical indemnity fees if
applicable.
Other subscriptions - HMRC have a list ("List 3") of all the professional bodies whose
expenses are tax deductible. Later in the guide we show you how to search this
unwieldy list for allowable subscriptions. To check if a professional body is on List 3 you
can find it here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/professional-bodies-
approved-for-tax-relief-list-3/approved-professional-organisations-and-learned-
societies .
You may be able to claim the cost of “repairing or replacing small tools you need to do
your job”e.g. stethoscopes - but not the initial cost of buying them. This is beyond the
scope of this guide and unfortunately HMRC can be rather difficult for what can be
relatively trivial amounts involved for claiming.
Finding receipts and amounts

You don't need receipts to claim but if you are unsure of the amounts you've paid here's some
information to help you.
To view and download GMC fee receipts go to:

https://webcache.gmc-uk.org/ecustomer_enu/index.aspx
Click "My Account" then "Payment History" from the left hand menu.
To get a full list of the fees you've paid to your Medical Indemnity provider simply email the
following addresses:
MPS: member.help@mps.org.uk or MDU: membership@the-mdu.com.

BMA: membership@bma.org.uk
Most Royal Colleges provide a contact email for members to contact them to receive a receipt
for membership, and/or examination, fees paid . Some of these are included below:
Royal College of Anaesthetists exams@rcoa.ac.uk

Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists memberrecords@rcog.org.uk
Royal College of Physicians membershipqueries@rcplondon.ac.uk
Royal College of General Practice membership@rcgp.org.uk
Royal College of Surgeons:
London membership@rcseng.ac.uk Edinburgh membership@rcsed.ac.uk
Royal College of Paediatrics examinations.enquiries@rcpch.ac.uk
College of Emergency Medicine http://www.collemergencymed.ac.uk/Home/contact
HMRC have a list ("List 3") of all the professional bodies whose expenses are tax deductible.
To check if a professional body is on List 3 you can find it here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/professional-bodies-approved-for-tax-relief-
list-3/approved-professional-organisations-and-learned-societies .
Expenses you cannot usually claim

There are some expenses that you may have incurred which you cannot usually claim for. These
include, among other things, the following:
- Fees incurred for Advanced Life Support, Advanced Trauma Life Support or Paediatric
Life Support courses.
- Fees incurred for continuing professional development such as courses; if you have a
trainee contract which specifically states you are required to complete specific training this may
be allowable. Some colleges provide a list of “potentially allowable courses” on their website.
These may be allowable if reflected in your training contract.
- Fees which your employer has paid for you, for example through your study budget
- Fees for revision courses for exams or any expenses in connection with studying
- Fees for any diplomas taken
If you have a significant amount of expenses that you’re not sure you can claim, we would
recommend using a Medics’Money accountant to maximise the amount you claim.
If in doubt about whether or not a professional expense is applicable, seek advice.
Getting help
If you need help our FAQ contains some answers to common questions:
https://www.medicsmoney.co.uk/faq/
Starting your claim

As of early March 2020 HMRC have changed the way claims are made. There are two main ways
of doing so – the following is our recommended approach. So, firstly, go to the following
website:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/claim-income-tax-relief-for-your-employment-expenses-p87
and scroll down to the “Claim online” heading and click the “Claim using the online service”
link. You will then need to sign in using your log-in which you created when you set up your
Personal Tax Account. After that click the “Start Now” button.
You will then see the screen on the next page and can start making your claim.
Select which tax year you would like to make a claim for.
A tax year runs from 6 April to 5 April the following year.
So the tax year 2020/2021 runs from 6 April 2020 to 5
April 2021.
We are currently in the 2022/2023 tax year. You can make
a claim for the current tax year (though you may wish to
wait until nearer the end of the tax year / after the tax
year has ended as you may incur subsequent expenses
later on.)
You can make a claim for the four previous tax years as
well. This means that you can claim for any expenses
incurred in 6 April 2018 - 2019, 6 April 2019 - 5 April 2020,
6 April 2020 - 5 April 2021 and 6 April 2021 to 5 April
2022. You must have been employed in the UK during the
tax year for which you wish to claim the relevant
expenses.
Tax relief can be claimed in the tax year in which the
expense was incurred. So for example, if you paid a GMC
fee in September 2020 that falls in the 6 April 2020 to 5
April 2021 tax year.
Your Royal College membership fee is tax

deductible. We use the RCOG here as an
example. It is easiest to find the right Royal
College by typing in the specialty rather than
starting with “Royal College” e.g. here start
typing "Obstetricians and..."

Membership expenses relating to numerous other
professional bodies are allowable. On this page you will find a list of some of the others. You
will note that this includes the Joint Committee on Surgical Training (listed as “Surgical
Training Joint Committee on”).
If you are a member of the

British Medical Association, the
fee you paid is tax deductible.
Note that as shown, they come
up as "Medical Association
British" (!)
Continue to claim professional
expenses until you have
claimed them all.
If you took a Royal College exam in the tax year

(whether for the first time or a re-sit) you can claim a
tax deduction for these expenses. Click "yes" and then
"save and continue."
To claim for your examination fees, first enter

in "[Specialty] Royal College of" so that
HMRC know which professional body the
exam relates to. Then detail which
examination it was e.g. AKT, MRCS Part 1,
PACES etc - HMRC have a list of exams per
Royal College that they allow. It is best to use
the full name of the exam rather than an
acronym however e.g. Applied Knowledge
Test rather than AKT
This is the only place you can claim for

examinations so if you took more than one you
need to mention this in this box e.g. "MRCOG
Part 1 and Part 2 examinations" or "MRCOG
Part 3 - 2 attempts".
In the "Amount paid by you" enter the total

amount for all examination fees incurred in this
tax year.
If in any tax year you try and claim more than £2,500 in
professional expenses you will get this error message.
You will need to delete your claim for that tax year and
complete a self-assessment tax return to be able to
make the claim.
We would strongly recommend that you employ an
accountant to assist you with this. If this applies to
you, you can find an accountant who will be able to
help you by clicking on this link.
You are now almost finished.

Click here to say that you would
like any repayment due to paid to
yourself.
HMRC will send you a "Payable
Order". The next screen will ask
you to which address you would
like a "Payable Order" sent to.
This is the final step. Click

"confirm and send" to file your
claim for tax relief on your
professional expenses.
This is the last screen giving you your

reference number. You will also be
sent a confirmation email of your claim.
Important Notice
The guidance contained in this document has been prepared by Medics Money Limited to provide
general information only to assist junior doctors with claiming tax relief on their professional expenses
incurred in their duties as trainee doctors. The material does not constitute investment, tax, legal or
any other form of advice. You should not rely on this information to make (or refrain from making) any
decisions. This guidance does not take into account specific circumstances and is for general guidance
only. Always obtain independent, professional advice for your own particular situation.
This document has been prepared based on the law, regulations, judicial interpretations and guidance
applying as of the date stated on the front cover of the document. Any advice contained in this
document is subject to any subsequent changes in law, regulations, judicial interpretations or guidance.
Please note that not everyone will be due a repayment and in some instances tax will be payable - this
is usually the case of payroll departments have not deducted the correct amounts of tax under the "Pay
As You Earn" system. Medics Money excepts no liability if tax is due to HMRC. Any repayment due to
you will be reduced if previous repayments have been made or if your "tax code" has already been
altered to take into account your professional expenses.
Medics Money Limited is a limited company registered in England under registered number 09062977,
with its registered address at The Victoria, 25 St Pancras, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 7LT.

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A Guide to Claiming Tax Relief

on Your Professional Expenses

© Medics Money Limited December 2018 Updated April 2022

Professional Expenses: Part II

Before You Start

© Medics Money Limited December 2018 Updated April 2022

Professional Expenses: Part II

• The tax year 6 April 2018 to 5 April 2019

• The tax year 6 April 2019 to 5 April 2020

• The tax year 6 April 2020 to 5 April 2021

• The tax year 6 April 2021 to 5 April 2022

• IMPORTANT: IF YOUR PROFESSIONAL EXPENSES EXCEED £2,500 IN A TAX YEAR YOU

© Medics Money Limited December 2018 Updated April 2022

Professional Expenses: Part II

What can I claim?

Expenses that you can claim for will usually include:

Your Royal College membership fee for each year

Your GMC fees including any CCT fees paid

British Medical Association fees if applicable

© Medics Money Limited December 2018 Updated April 2022

Professional Expenses: Part II

Finding receipts and amounts

To view and download GMC fee receipts go to:

MPS: member.help@mps.org.uk or MDU: membership@the-mdu.com.

Royal College of Anaesthetists exams@rcoa.ac.uk

© Medics Money Limited December 2018 Updated April 2022

Professional Expenses: Part II

Expenses you cannot usually claim

- Fees for any diplomas taken

If in doubt about whether or not a professional expense is applicable, seek advice.

© Medics Money Limited December 2018 Updated April 2022

Professional Expenses: Part II

Starting your claim

© Medics Money Limited December 2018 Updated April 2022

Professional Expenses: Part II

© Medics Money Limited December 2018 Updated April 2022

Professional Expenses: Part II

© Medics Money Limited December 2018 Updated April 2022

Professional Expenses: Part II

© Medics Money Limited December 2018 Updated April 2022

Professional Expenses: Part II

© Medics Money Limited December 2018 Updated April 2022

Professional Expenses: Part II

© Medics Money Limited December 2018 Updated April 2022

Professional Expenses: Part II

© Medics Money Limited December 2018 Updated April 2022

Professional Expenses: Part II

Your Royal College membership fee is tax

© Medics Money Limited December 2018 Updated April 2022

Professional Expenses: Part II

© Medics Money Limited December 2018 Updated April 2022

Professional Expenses: Part II

If you are a member of the

© Medics Money Limited December 2018 Updated April 2022

Professional Expenses: Part II

If you took a Royal College exam in the tax year

To claim for your examination fees, first enter

This is the only place you can claim for

In the "Amount paid by you" enter the total

© Medics Money Limited December 2018 Updated April 2022

Professional Expenses: Part II

© Medics Money Limited December 2018 Updated April 2022

Professional Expenses: Part II