Employer Deducting Commuting Mileage from Business Travel
Discussion
CheesecakeRunner said:
My employer (multinational IT consultancy) used to deduct home to base mileage from all travel claims supposedly on advice of HMRC. But they stopped doing it a few years ago, again supposedly on advice of HMRC.
The reasonably rapid transition to widespread home and hybrid working has thrown up various scenarios that require some adjustment to the previous HMRC rules and allowances at a time when they seemingly lack the capacity to order new toner. There's a lot if 'interpretation' and not much in the way of 'regulation' (IMO).Countdown said:
I think the HMRC rules have changed a few times.
It used to be "Business miles travelled LESS normal commute"
Then "the LOWER of Home to Temporary site or Office to temporary site"
and now "Actual business miles travelled regardless of whether it's shorter or longer then your normal commute"
I'm not aware it's ever changed, for tax claim purposes you've always been able to claim from HMRC for the whole journey. You can even call into your office on the way.It used to be "Business miles travelled LESS normal commute"
Then "the LOWER of Home to Temporary site or Office to temporary site"
and now "Actual business miles travelled regardless of whether it's shorter or longer then your normal commute"
However employers can do what ever they like. My wife used to work for HMRC and for work journeys she could only claim the extra mileage. She mostly used to be given visits that were nearer home than the office (and the office was only 6 miles away) so in practice she could rarely claim at all.
One of our daughters work for the NHS and it's same for her. Their claim system is so complicated hardly anyone claims even when they could.
Doofus said:
Business mileage is that travelled for business less the mileage that you would normally do to your usual workplace.
It doesn't matter which direction you go; if your daily commute to your usual workplace is 10 miles, then you should deduct 20 miles (10 each way) from any business mileage claim.
Yep, this. It's something that on the face of it is entirely fair and reasonable for an employer to do, as you are getting any additional travel costs covered, but it just comes across as a little bit cheap on the part of the employer.It doesn't matter which direction you go; if your daily commute to your usual workplace is 10 miles, then you should deduct 20 miles (10 each way) from any business mileage claim.
My work did this for a customer site we had nearby which rarely happens as 95% our customers are out with the UK. Emplyees were having their mileage to our workshop deducted from the mileage to the customer site. Same with the extra travel time. It was unusual as our conditions are decent and get well looked after. Always assumed it was an HMRC thing rather than our company.
Anyone working on that site just took to coming to our workshop to start their shift then drive to site.
Anyone working on that site just took to coming to our workshop to start their shift then drive to site.
My wife is a district nurse, and her patch that she covers is our village, and a few surrounding villages. It’s quite common for her to leave our house, and visit a patient about a mile away.
She only needs to go to ‘base’ (10 miles away), to either stock up on bandages etc, or have meetings.
Her employer, one if those ‘not for profit’ companies, have deemed that she must claim mileage from the base.
So the crazy situation is thus…..
Wifey drives one mile from our house to patient, and claims 45p. Nope. Company pays nothing as they dont pay the first 10 miles coz she lives 10 miles from base.
Hence she claims 10 miles from base to patient, that she hasn’t done.
Its the only way to ‘legally’ claim the one mile she has actually done. Crazy
She only needs to go to ‘base’ (10 miles away), to either stock up on bandages etc, or have meetings.
Her employer, one if those ‘not for profit’ companies, have deemed that she must claim mileage from the base.
So the crazy situation is thus…..
Wifey drives one mile from our house to patient, and claims 45p. Nope. Company pays nothing as they dont pay the first 10 miles coz she lives 10 miles from base.
Hence she claims 10 miles from base to patient, that she hasn’t done.
Its the only way to ‘legally’ claim the one mile she has actually done. Crazy
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/ordinary-commuting-and...
3.49 provides an example
If the employer will not pay the total travel from home to site and makes a deduction equivalent to the element from home to the office, you can claim tax relief on the difference
3.49 provides an example
If the employer will not pay the total travel from home to site and makes a deduction equivalent to the element from home to the office, you can claim tax relief on the difference
BruceFlea said:
My wife is a district nurse, and her patch that she covers is our village, and a few surrounding villages. It’s quite common for her to leave our house, and visit a patient about a mile away.
She only needs to go to ‘base’ (10 miles away), to either stock up on bandages etc, or have meetings.
Her employer, one if those ‘not for profit’ companies, have deemed that she must claim mileage from the base.
So the crazy situation is thus…..
Wifey drives one mile from our house to patient, and claims 45p. Nope. Company pays nothing as they dont pay the first 10 miles coz she lives 10 miles from base.
Hence she claims 10 miles from base to patient, that she hasn’t done.
Its the only way to ‘legally’ claim the one mile she has actually done. Crazy
Hmmm...I don't know what you think is "legal" about that. She's defrauding her employer. She only needs to go to ‘base’ (10 miles away), to either stock up on bandages etc, or have meetings.
Her employer, one if those ‘not for profit’ companies, have deemed that she must claim mileage from the base.
So the crazy situation is thus…..
Wifey drives one mile from our house to patient, and claims 45p. Nope. Company pays nothing as they dont pay the first 10 miles coz she lives 10 miles from base.
Hence she claims 10 miles from base to patient, that she hasn’t done.
Its the only way to ‘legally’ claim the one mile she has actually done. Crazy
Although my wife couldn't claim in similar circumstances, she used to take the view that she was saving herself money (and time) anyway as she didn't have to drive to the office.
The system my daughter uses in the NHS has to have the car's start and finish mileage for evey trip.
LastPoster said:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/ordinary-commuting-and...
3.49 provides an example
If the employer will not pay the total travel from home to site and makes a deduction equivalent to the element from home to the office, you can claim tax relief on the difference
The link in the quoted post is pretty clear, I used it with a number of the examples provided to explain to our management team how the system works as they were also trying to knock the mileage off which for a lot of our team would have seen them driving 100 miles or more before being able to claim.3.49 provides an example
If the employer will not pay the total travel from home to site and makes a deduction equivalent to the element from home to the office, you can claim tax relief on the difference
Forgot the whole base office thing, it's about permanent and temporary places of work and tasks of limited duration. HMRC aren't interested in what is in someone's contract or where their base office is, they only care about what actually happens.
Our expenses policy was eventually updated to state that whilst generally some mileage can't be claimed for, HMRC guidelines would always override the expenses policy which works well for those who are field based and rarely visit an office. Indeed it also means we can claim for travelling to our office as by the guidelines it would be classed as a temporary work place.
jurbie said:
The link in the quoted post is pretty clear, I used it with a number of the examples provided to explain to our management team how the system works as they were also trying to knock the mileage off which for a lot of our team would have seen them driving 100 miles or more before being able to claim.
Forgot the whole base office thing, it's about permanent and temporary places of work and tasks of limited duration. HMRC aren't interested in what is in someone's contract or where their base office is, they only care about what actually happens.
Our expenses policy was eventually updated to state that whilst generally some mileage can't be claimed for, HMRC guidelines would always override the expenses policy which works well for those who are field based and rarely visit an office. Indeed it also means we can claim for travelling to our office as by the guidelines it would be classed as a temporary work place.
Your conflating HMRC regulations with company policy.Forgot the whole base office thing, it's about permanent and temporary places of work and tasks of limited duration. HMRC aren't interested in what is in someone's contract or where their base office is, they only care about what actually happens.
Our expenses policy was eventually updated to state that whilst generally some mileage can't be claimed for, HMRC guidelines would always override the expenses policy which works well for those who are field based and rarely visit an office. Indeed it also means we can claim for travelling to our office as by the guidelines it would be classed as a temporary work place.
There's absolutely no reason why they have to be the same - indeed, see my earlier post, where HMRC's policy as an employer is different to that in its role as the tax authority.
Well done if you got your employer to swallow that though!
Sheepshanks said:
BruceFlea said:
My wife is a district nurse, and her patch that she covers is our village, and a few surrounding villages. It’s quite common for her to leave our house, and visit a patient about a mile away.
She only needs to go to ‘base’ (10 miles away), to either stock up on bandages etc, or have meetings.
Her employer, one if those ‘not for profit’ companies, have deemed that she must claim mileage from the base.
So the crazy situation is thus…..
Wifey drives one mile from our house to patient, and claims 45p. Nope. Company pays nothing as they dont pay the first 10 miles coz she lives 10 miles from base.
Hence she claims 10 miles from base to patient, that she hasn’t done.
Its the only way to ‘legally’ claim the one mile she has actually done. Crazy
Hmmm...I don't know what you think is "legal" about that. She's defrauding her employer. She only needs to go to ‘base’ (10 miles away), to either stock up on bandages etc, or have meetings.
Her employer, one if those ‘not for profit’ companies, have deemed that she must claim mileage from the base.
So the crazy situation is thus…..
Wifey drives one mile from our house to patient, and claims 45p. Nope. Company pays nothing as they dont pay the first 10 miles coz she lives 10 miles from base.
Hence she claims 10 miles from base to patient, that she hasn’t done.
Its the only way to ‘legally’ claim the one mile she has actually done. Crazy
Ok clearly worms are spilling out here.... in regards to home working and the HMRC guidance posted previously, I think 3.37 trumps 3.49 and pretty much in conflict in my scenario.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/ordinary-commuting-and...
So 3.37 says
"We will not accept that working at home is an objective requirement of the job if the employer provides appropriate facilities in another location that could be practically used by the employee, or the employee works from home as a matter of choice."
In the informal flexible arrangement, under Covid they were forced to work to work from home, however now that is most definitely a personal choice, even if the capacity at the office could not now accommodate all employees in attendance given the changes made since Covid to reduce office space.
3.49 says
"Where the employee does not stop at the permanent workplace, or any stop is incidental to the business journey, all of the journey is business travel."
but this would only apply if the working from home element was deemed not to be by employee choice, which in my orgs scenrio is debatable and a grey area we would need to be clearer on.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/ordinary-commuting-and...
So 3.37 says
"We will not accept that working at home is an objective requirement of the job if the employer provides appropriate facilities in another location that could be practically used by the employee, or the employee works from home as a matter of choice."
In the informal flexible arrangement, under Covid they were forced to work to work from home, however now that is most definitely a personal choice, even if the capacity at the office could not now accommodate all employees in attendance given the changes made since Covid to reduce office space.
3.49 says
"Where the employee does not stop at the permanent workplace, or any stop is incidental to the business journey, all of the journey is business travel."
but this would only apply if the working from home element was deemed not to be by employee choice, which in my orgs scenrio is debatable and a grey area we would need to be clearer on.
Sheepshanks said:
Your conflating HMRC regulations with company policy.
There's absolutely no reason why they have to be the same - indeed, see my earlier post, where HMRC's policy as an employer is different to that in its role as the tax authority.
Well done if you got your employer to swallow that though!
Oh I get that, but the argument my employer was making, and indeed many others seem to try to push is that they are just following HMRC rules when in fact they've completely misinterpreted them, either willfully or otherwise.There's absolutely no reason why they have to be the same - indeed, see my earlier post, where HMRC's policy as an employer is different to that in its role as the tax authority.
Well done if you got your employer to swallow that though!
In the end, my employer did swallow it because they updated the expenses policy to state that HMRC guidelines overrule the company policy.
chrisch77 said:
It is all down to where the stated permanent place of work is. Allowing flexible working is not the same as giving the employee a home office based contract. If the latter then all travel costs can be claimed as expenses, but if the contract is still based on the company office location then only additional mileage can be claimed. I believe this is down to HMRC rules and not your employer.
I had the same issue with HMRC years ago. They were fighting me on mileage expenses traveling from home to the office. Except home was 240 miles away and I did it once a month. They said this was my 'commute' and I had to send all sorts of info to prove otherwise. Calendar invites, emails etc... Lots of hoops to jump through.
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