Place of Employment - Tax BIK etc

[worsy]

Just so I'm not going mad.

Having contracted for a long time I'm acutely aware of place of employment, expenses, tax etc. I've just accepted a perm role which is "based from home" with expensed travel to client sites. All good as far as I am concerned.

Trouble is two fold.

1. Contractual place of employment is Head Office (200 miles away)
2. No mention of expensed travel in the contract.

Not withstanding 2, my view is that HMRC would therefore propose that home to head office travel was normal commute and as such home to client travel which was not substantially different would be taxable.

I'm not being an arse am I?

[randlemarcus]

No, you're correct. And it's also worth mentioning that people and policies change internally, so that your agreed nod and a wink claim for mileage may be denied because your base is in London. I had that after five years at one company, so just got the train instead

[worsy]

randlemarcus said:

No, you're correct. And it's also worth mentioning that people and policies change internally, so that your agreed nod and a wink claim for mileage may be denied because your base is in London. I had that after five years at one company, so just got the train instead

Thanks, and yes duly noted regarding the t&cs changing.

[anonymous-user]

Check internal policies for travel expenses and confirm

HMRC no longer use triangulation for biz travel, so a true biz trip is 100% reclaimable, you could even stop at the office on the way and claim 100%(if the stop was incidental)

Example
Darren drives each day between his home in Southampton and his office in Winchester.
One day he has to travel on business to Birmingham and back. He drives directly from
home to Birmingham but stops off at his office to pick up some papers. His stop is
incidental to his business journey. His business journey is from his home in Southampton
to Birmingham and back. Tax relief is available for the cost of his journey from his home to
Birmingham and back

[worsy]

Thanks for that. I compromised on an office location close to where I live but part of the parent group so I'll never go there. i think the issue is more with a WFH location has certain responsibilities regarding desk etc whereas WFH occasionally not covered.

[Blown2CV]

HMRC couldn't give a st where you employee designates your base. They care about where you spend more than 40% of your time, if you have the same pattern for 2 years or more (or, actually, the point where you foresee you will have the same pattern for 2 years or more...). Generally if you undertake business mileage you are reimbursed for at least some of it. The rest you can claim from the taxman as a tax allowance. Also any amount lower than 45ppm for the first 10k miles (I think) can also be claimed back. Past that threshold and the amount is lower.

So, if you were travelling to London, say, for more than 2 years and claiming expenses then HMRC treat the expenses as income and determine that you owe tax on it. Some employers then pivot and pay you it as income, a far higher amount, so the net figure is the same as the expense claim. This is kind of above board but like anything tax related it's a bit grey.

If you were nominally home based you'd typically expect to be able to expense any business trip, include base travel. Some employers are utter dheads and say that you cannot expense base travel, or equivalent mileage to base. So in your case, the first 200 miles would be on you! I'd do some checking if I were you... this can in some policies also apply to other modes of travel by deduction in the equivalent amount you can claim.