CIS tax refund for construction workers in London
Your contractor deducts before your allowance and before your costs. Filing the return is what gets the difference back — and filing it early is what gets it back quickly.
What you get
If you are a subcontractor under the Construction Industry Scheme, 20% comes off every payment before anything else is considered — 30% if you were never registered. That deduction ignores your £12,570 personal allowance and every pound you spent on tools, travel, materials and protective clothing. Most subcontractors therefore finish the year having paid HMRC more than they owed, and the only way to get it back is a correctly prepared Self Assessment return.
We reconstruct your year from your CIS statements, or from your bank records when contractors never sent them, claim the expenses you are entitled to, and file as soon as the tax year opens. Returns filed in April and May are usually repaid within a few weeks; the same claim filed in January sits behind several million others.
What is included
Statements checked against payments, and reconstructed from bank records where statements are missing.
Van and mileage, tools, protective clothing, phone, insurance, use of home — claimed properly, not padded.
Generally up to four tax years can still be claimed, and many first-time clients recover several at once.
If you are being deducted at 30% we register you so future payments drop to 20%, and the excess comes back through the return.
Submitted as soon as the year opens, and followed up with HMRC until the money arrives.
English, Romanian or Ukrainian — the whole way through, not just the first call.
Who it is for
Subcontractors working under CIS anywhere in and around London: groundworkers, carpenters, electricians, plasterers, bricklayers, roofers, labourers and the self-employed trades that move between sites. It is for people whose contractor has been deducting all year, whether or not they have the paperwork to prove it.
It is also for people who have never filed and have been deducted at 30% for years. That situation is common, it is fixable, and the amount sitting with HMRC is usually larger than people imagine.
How it works
You send us whatever you have — CIS statements, payslips, bank statements, photographs of receipts. If the statements never arrived, say so; we reconstruct the deductions from the payments and can request data from HMRC where we need to.
We prepare the return, show you what the refund comes to and where every figure came from, and file it once you are happy. Then we watch for the repayment and chase HMRC if it is slow, which it sometimes is.
Over fourteen years the firm has collected more than 1,300 published reviews across Google and Trustpilot, and both profiles are open for anyone to read before they pick up the phone.
What it costs
The refund claim is the Self Assessment return, so it is the same fixed fee — agreed in writing before we start, whatever the refund turns out to be. We do not take a percentage of your money, because a percentage rewards us for your refund being large rather than for the return being right.
Questions people ask before they call
How much will I get back?
Nobody can answer that honestly before seeing your figures, and anybody who quotes you a guaranteed amount is guessing. It depends on what you were paid, what was deducted and what you spent. The calculator on this site gives a realistic range, and we confirm it against your real records.
My contractor never gave me CIS statements.
Very common, and not a reason to give up on the claim. We rebuild the deductions from your bank records and payment history, and can ask HMRC for the data where that is the cleaner route.
How long does the refund take?
A return filed in April or May is usually repaid within a few weeks. Later in the year HMRC volumes rise and it slows down, which is the whole argument for filing early — the wait costs you nothing but time you did not need to spend.
I am being deducted 30%, not 20%. Why?
Because you are not registered with HMRC as a subcontractor under the scheme. We register you, so future payments drop to 20%, and the extra 10% already taken comes back through your return.
Can I claim for previous years?
Generally up to four tax years back. If you have never filed, that is usually the first conversation we have, and it is often the most valuable one.
Find out what you are owed
Send what you have and we will tell you what the year looks like. English · Română · Українська.