Over 70% of nurses missing out on tax relief warns NMC

A recent survey conducted by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) has found 70% of its members are missing out on an average tax rebate of £177 by not claiming the full tax relief on their registration fees.

With over 670,000 members paying an annual membership fee of £100, nurses and midwives are missing out on a staggering £9.4m of tax relief each year!

It is important that nurses and midwives know that they are eligible to claim tax relief on their annual NMC registration fee as well as other profession-related items such as laundering of uniforms and professional subscriptions to their union or professional body. For many nurses and midwives this can be worth up to £177 per year.

Jackie Smith, Chief Executive and Registrar of the NMC

Tax relief on NMC registration fees

Little known legislation exists in the form of Section 344 of the Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003 which allows taxpayers to offset their NMC registration and membership fees against their taxable income.

This effectively means you to claim back between 20-40% of your fees each year. If you have not made a claim before, you can claim back overpaid tax from the last 4 years – meaning you could potentially claim a rebate of up to £708 from HMRC.

Uniform cleaning allowance

In addition to claiming tax relief on NMC fees, healthcare professionals are also entitled to claim a “flat rate expense” allowance for the cost incurred in maintaining their uniforms. Nurses, midwives, healthcare assistants, hospital porters or similar may claim an allowance of £125 per year.

They can also claim an additional allowance of £18 per year if they are required to wear a prescribed style or colour of shoes/tights/stockings/socks.

Most other healthcare staff, such as receptionists, laboratory staff, parking attendants, security staff and uniformed ancillary workers can claim £60 per year.

How to claim tax relief on NMC fees

Almost half of those surveyed by NMC were aware they could claim tax relief but had not done so. Understanding your tax allowances can be confusing, and with a quarter of 79 million calls going unanswered, it’s little wonder why many would want to avoid dealing with HMRC directly.

At Tax Rebates Limited, we help thousands of healthcare professionals each month claim their full tax allowance with a simple 3-minute application form.

All we need is your work history, a few personal details and we’ll take care of the rest! We’ll even apply to have your tax code changed so you continue to receive the correct allowances each month.

To get started, try out our tax rebate calculator to get an estimate of how much you can claim based on your circumstances!