public transport

maryjka

hi,
I'm self employed child care (nanny). I use public transport to travel to my work. I would like to know if I can include my spending on public transport in my tax return. is it the whole amount or just some percentage of it.
thank you for reply

Nosht

Self employed? Keep all your receipts including travel tickets.

N.

maryjka

yes I done that. but I'm not sure if I can include the full price of the ticket.

jimmo

The first tax question is "Are you travelling to work (normal commuting) or travelling in the course of your business?"
Very, very roughly, if you have one client and do your child caring in your client's home the taxman will regard you as commuting and your travel costs will not be allowable.
If you have multiple clients you will have a much better chance of convincing the taxman that your base of business is your home and your travel to your clients' premises are business journeys and therefore allowable.
Also, if you have only one client your self-employed status is seriously suspect. You are much more likely to be an employee, or even, a domestic employee.
That would produce a lot more problems.
In practical terms I would suggest that you making a tax claim for your travel expenses will seriously increase the risk that HMRC will come sniffing but your client / employer will be in far more danger of getting a tax bill than you.
On this forum the question is how much are you prepared to share?

maryjka

well that's why I had to become self-employed. Because for the past year I have been getting temporary jobs, some where for 3 month, some for a week or so. So I had a few people I worked for. does this counts as multiple clients?

lordbase

Very generally:

It's likely that if you only have 1 client at a time HMRC will treat your commute as travelling to a main or only place of work, in which case your travel costs aren't allowable for tax purposes.

If you have more than one client at a time and you travel from one to the other on the same day your travelling expenses for that journey are clearly not commuting and so you would be able to claim THAT part of your costs.

Generally the costs of travelling from home to a single workplace are not allowed as a tax deduction (unless you usually work from home).

maryjka

thank you. that was really helpful.

Chris_Tax

lordbase wrote: »

Very generally:

It's likely that if you only have 1 client at a time HMRC will treat your commute as travelling to a main or only place of work, in which case your travel costs aren't allowable for tax purposes.

If you have more than one client at a time and you travel from one to the other on the same day your travelling expenses for that journey are clearly not commuting and so you would be able to claim THAT part of your costs.

Generally the costs of travelling from home to a single workplace are not allowed as a tax deduction (unless you usually work from home).

I would suggest that this is actually not the case.

I believe this travel should be viewed as an expense incurred wholly and exclusively in respect of fulfilling your self-employment trade.

If I were in your shoes I would certainly include 100% of the travel costs.

Many of the rules discussed above are in respect of the application of ITEPA rules to employees. I don't believe this is in point here.

maryjka

Ohhh, I'm really confused now. I also think that I should include those into my self-assessment. my travel is the same as someone who is working on a construction site/building as a self-employed and will as well treat his travel to the site as a traveling of a purpose of his business. its going to be a one client at a time. So if I look at it like this I think I'm the same case.

lordbase

Chris_Tax wrote: »

I would suggest that this is actually not the case.

I believe this travel should be viewed as an expense incurred wholly and exclusively in respect of fulfilling your self-employment trade.

If I were in your shoes I would certainly include 100% of the travel costs.

Many of the rules discussed above are in respect of the application of ITEPA rules to employees. I don't believe this is in point here.

I have to disagree with that Chris, the rules in relation to self employment are not so different to those for employees.

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/bimmanual/BIM37605.htm

Ordinary commuting between home and a place of work is not allowable for tax purposes. Or as HMRC put it:

HMRC wrote:

Everyone needs a place to live and the journey from their place of residence to place of work is, at least in part, occasioned by the private choice of where to live. So the journey will have a dual purpose and the cost is not allowable.

maryjka

so it will be better then if I don't include them then.