Claiming mileage for driving into office

[Jimi.K.]

Hi all,

Looking for a bit of advice regarding claiming business mileage. I've just started a new job and my contract states my normal place of work is my home address. I use my personal car for business use and can claim 45ppm for the first 10k business miles and 25ppm thereafter. All straightforward there.

What I'm unsure about is the fact that so far I've been asked to come into the office every day from 9-5:30 to sit with the team and learn the ropes, and it looks like my manager wants me to do this for at least the next 2-3 weeks, probably dropping down to once a week or so after that. This is a 100mile round trip so potentially £45 a day in mileage claims.

Question is, should I be expecting my new employer to reimburse these initial trips into the office or am I effectively just office based and commuting for a few weeks regardless of what my contract says?

Cheers,

Jimi

[eltax91]

I’ve been officially a home worker at 3 different jobs for the last 7 years. In every case I’ve claimed and been paid mileage for trips into the office. Plenty of that has been training for long periods at a time, like an induction/ initial learning for example.

Is it a big outfit? If so They’ll be expecting you to claim.

[tigerkoi]

Jimi.K. said:

Hi all,

Looking for a bit of advice regarding claiming business mileage. I've just started a new job and my contract states my normal place of work is my home address. I use my personal car for business use and can claim 45ppm for the first 10k business miles and 25ppm thereafter. All straightforward there.

What I'm unsure about is the fact that so far I've been asked to come into the office every day from 9-5:30 to sit with the team and learn the ropes, and it looks like my manager wants me to do this for at least the next 2-3 weeks, probably dropping down to once a week or so after that. This is a 100mile round trip so potentially £45 a day in mileage claims.

Question is, should I be expecting my new employer to reimburse these initial trips into the office or am I effectively just office based and commuting for a few weeks regardless of what my contract says?

Cheers,

Jimi

So many variables...

A properly large company where stuff like this is non-negotiable, of small enterprise with 50 people in a two story outfit on the edge of town?

In all honesty, there’ll be loads of people pop up saying x, y and z about the specifics of your mileage claims. But I think you need to reflect on whether you want to be submitting expense claims and you haven’t even properly started yet. Normally people in a new job are looking to give 120% to show they’re the right person and fit. An approach which I think would be easier is just suck it up and after a few days, just ask your manager on what the ‘protocol’ is for your situation.

Remember two things: it doesn’t matter if you have whole divisions and hundreds of staff in some big conglomerate to look after or you are a travelling hoover salesman - your expense claims aren’t for a secretary to get right. They’re for you to be 100% on. And secondly, expenses are always a brilliant way to nail a member of staff on a misconduct/fraud claim if they mess it up. The more senior, the juicier they get tucked up.

Just go to the office and get clarity from your boss after a week or so. Suck it up. Make a good impression first then ask about the minutiae.

[A900ss]

It’s.more than what the company consider, it’s what HMRC consider that really counts.

I work from Home, go to head office generally once a week (100 miles) and claim it and the company are fine.

I ‘think’ HMRC consider it a permanent place of work (therefore not claimable) if you are there more than twice a week. However this is over the course of a year not each week as I sometimes go into the office 5 days straight but not again for another month and that’s fine.

So in summary, I think HMRC get arsey if it’s more than twice a week over the course of the fiscal.

Good luck with the new job.

[sjabrown]

Consider the tax implications. You can claim 45ppm tax relief for up to 10000 miles, 25ppm thereafter, provided the office counts as a temporary place of work.
This does not equate to £45 for a 100 mile round trip: it is tax relief of £45 (i.e reducing your tax liability by £45 so if you pay basic rate tax (20%) then it would be £9 (20% of £45) that you would save. This is if you claim from HMRC by self-assessment or similar.

If your employer pays then this also has tax implications: if they pay less than the claimable tax relief you can claim that difference. If they pay the same then it balances. If they pay more then you may have to pay more tax.

[Jimi.K.]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I'll definitely be averaging less than twice a week over the course of a year so don't think I'll have any issues with the HMRC, and my manager seems very relaxed about expenses so far so I feel comfortable asking him - just wanted to get the consensus first on whether this is something I should expect or if I'm being a bit cheeky!

sjabrown said:

Consider the tax implications. You can claim 45ppm tax relief for up to 10000 miles, 25ppm thereafter, provided the office counts as a temporary place of work.
This does not equate to £45 for a 100 mile round trip: it is tax relief of £45 (i.e reducing your tax liability by £45 so if you pay basic rate tax (20%) then it would be £9 (20% of £45) that you would save. This is if you claim from HMRC by self-assessment or similar.

If your employer pays then this also has tax implications: if they pay less than the claimable tax relief you can claim that difference. If they pay the same then it balances. If they pay more then you may have to pay more tax.

This is interesting - I've heard this mentioned before but never understood it. I've used a personal car on occasions in other jobs and they've always paid 45ppm. If I do 100miles I claim £45 through expenses and this is paid, without any deductions, into my bank account along with any other out of pocket expenses and separately to my PAYE salary. So in the past that has equated to £45 for a 100mile trip, not just tax relief. Is most of what you've said only applicable if you've being paid more or less than 45ppm, where you can either claim the difference from HMRC or pay tax on the excess?

[eltax91]

Jimi.K. said:

This is interesting - I've heard this mentioned before but never understood it. I've used a personal car on occasions in other jobs and they've always paid 45ppm. If I do 100miles I claim £45 through expenses and this is paid, without any deductions, into my bank account along with any other out of pocket expenses and separately to my PAYE salary. So in the past that has equated to £45 for a 100mile trip, not just tax relief. Is most of what you've said only applicable if you've being paid more or less than 45ppm, where you can either claim the difference from HMRC or pay tax on the excess?

Yes, it's only applicable if you DON'T get 45ppm. For example, my company pays a flat 21ppm (plus a car allowance taxed as PAYE), so last year and completed 16,127 business miles, so I claimed:-

tax relief (40%) of 24ppm for 10,000

plus

tax relief (40%) of 4ppm for (in my case) 6,127

[rsbmw]

Tax rules changed on this a couple of years ago, now even though you're a home worker, if you're 'regularly' commuting to the same office there is almost zero chance HMRC will accept that should be a tax free expense. Your company may be happy to pay mileage, but it should be a taxable payment.

I'm sure Eric will be along shortly to explain better.