Help with clarification on business millage needed please!!!

stuartroberts

From June the 1st we had our fuel cards taken off us.

Since then we have been forced to pay our own fuel and claim back the money through expenses.

Now I was allways under the impression that if i were to carry out a bussiness appointment on the way to and on the way home from the office then I would be ok. I have experienced this with an employer previously.

Most days i don't even go in the office.

I am a sales rep and my nearest office is Newcastle a round trip of at least 90 miles a day. One which is truthfully all bussiness miles. One which having taken out a credit card to fund and pay back through expenses, I can't afford to go to work if they reject to pay me back.

To prevent me having to pay company commuting millage to the office, for the last month i have made sure that i carry out a business appointment on the way to the office ( my place of work) and also visiting a customer on the way home.
HMRC say that if i do this then I am entitles to claim business millage from the moment i leave home.

Trouble is my employer is stating I am only entitled to the milage from the depot in newcastle to the appointments around the area. (around 20 miles per day).


If i have to pay the private millage on this commute then in a 2.3 petrol vectra
(company provided and not chosen by me). Then this will cost me £400 a month to go to work. Simply leaving me without any money to live on after bills.

Can anyone help clarify my situation for me?

mountainofdebt

When I was claiming business mileage and I hadn't been into the office I had to deduct the mileage that I would have driven to get to the office from the total done so if that was a negative figure then I wouldn't have been able to claim for that trip.

Googlewhacker

You trip to your main workplace is not allowed to be counted as business mileage.

Andy_L

There are 2 issues:
1. What HMRC allow to be paid without counting it as a taxable benefit &
2. What your employer will pay you.

These do not have to be the same. If your firm pay you more then the tax man wnats his cut, if they pay you less you either complain, change jobs or suck it up.

terra_ferma

I've seen two different systems.
The most common: employer don't pay mileage to/from your normal place of work, but pay full mileage if you go somewhere else.

One I've only seen once deducted the mileage to/from place of work and paid the difference only.

Now for appointments on route to the normal place of work, none of the companies I worked for would allow you to claim.

Did you look at your contract? Probably it doesn't, but it's worth checking if it mentions travel expenses and petrol card. It should also state your place of work.
If they have been paying mileage for a considerable time it could also come under 'custom and practice' and become contractual:
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Employment/Employees/EmploymentContractsAndConditions/DG_10037109

In order to change a contract they would need to give you notice:
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Employment/Employees/EmploymentContractsAndConditions/DG_10028079

HTH

System

To prevent me having to pay company commuting millage to the office, for the last month i have made sure that i carry out a business appointment on the way to the office ( my place of work) and also visiting a customer on the way home.
HMRC say that if i do this then I am entitles to claim business millage from the moment i leave home.

Journeys to & from work even if you call in at a clients on the way is never allowed unless the journey is significantly different from normal

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/mileage/employee-factsheet.pdf

wuckfit

Googlewhacker wrote: »

You trip to your main workplace is not allowed to be counted as business mileage.

The exact wording on HMRC website is "travel between home and permanent place of work"
it may depend upon whether you are classed as based at home or not. I would argue that a sales representative out on the road with few visits to the nearest office cannot possibly have a 'permanent' place of work.

System

Also about working from home

2.13 Home as a Place of Work
2.13.1 Where it is an objective requirement of the duties of the employment that the employee must work at home, the cost of travel from home to other places of work may be allowable. In practice, however, few employees are able to show that their home is, in a real sense, a place of work. It is not enough for an employee merely to carry out some aspect of his duties there. Usually this is a matter of personal choice rather than reflecting objective requirements of the job. Normally the employer will provide the facilities necessary for the work to be carried out at the business premises. Even if the holder of an office or employment has to do part of his work at home, the place where he resides is generally still his personal choice - so the journey between home and another place of work is no more or less in the performance of duties than a similar journey by someone who does no work at home, with no deduction available.

The OP still has a normal place of work which is the Newcastle office as there are facilities there for him to do his job (the same work that he would do at home).

ETA

I see from your other thread that your contract states that you are based out of the Newcastle office and not a home worker which only goes to reinforce the above. Therefore the triangular rule comes into force

2.12 'Triangular Travel'
2.12.1 'Triangular travel' occurs where an employee with a normal place of work travels not between home and that normal place of work but between home and another place at which he is required to perform the duties of his employment. What differentiates triangular travel is that the travel is direct between home and the temporary workplace. The journey need not actually be 'triangular'. The employee might, for example, leave home and make a business trip in the opposite direction to his normal place of work or on an occasion simply break his normal, daily journey into work by stopping off on business along his normal route.
2.12.2 In the case of triangular travel, the employee may claim a deduction of the lesser of the cost of:

• the actual journey between home and the temporary work place and
• a journey between the normal place of work and the temporary place of work.

stuartroberts

thanks everyone,

It would seem that after reading my contract that no contractuaral base address is included, but its mean't to be, although this has never been made aware to me until friday.


I am only asking to claim back actual business journeys not anything else, my contractual place of work is not defined in my contract of employment, whereas half my collegues states home and the other half work premises.

How can my company enforce that my place of work is 40 miles away when it is not specificly detailed in my contract of employment which reads.


"the nature of your work requires you to operate from, or another location within reasonable travelling distance, but also includes visiting suppliers and customers etc, at their premises"

As the set base is not defined in my contract of employment , can they now turn round and enforce this?


Notice the from , there is no address after it , its not a mistake by me.


When i had a fuel card, on my millage sheet i have never classed any of my daily millage as private for the last two years, and not once has any thing been flagged up to me. whats more the company put in place a compensation package offering to pay 80% of private millage for the next 2 years, but as i have never classed any of my working days miles to be private that hasn't been included in the compensation package.


Also i did discuss this issue at original interview stage only to be advised it wasn't a problem.

LittleVoice

stuartroberts wrote: »

When i had a fuel card, on my millage sheet i have never classed any of my daily millage as private for the last two years, and not once has any thing been flagged up to me. whats more the company put in place a compensation package offering to pay 80% of private millage for the next 2 years, but as i have never classed any of my working days miles to be private that hasn't been included in the compensation package.

Given that some of the mileage was probably "private" over those 2 years and would have been subject to tax, perhaps it's not quite so bad as you think.

Whether in fact your travel to work was business or private mileage may be considered in the light of how often you had to go to the office.

stuartroberts

don't get me wrong when i had a fuel card I used my company car for all my private millage, I don't have a problem paying for my private miles under the new scheme , but i do have a problem being out of pocket for my business miles as it isn't in my contract that my contractural base is either at home or at the office, surly this should be clarified in writing?