Unfair contact of employment term? Mileage to temporary workplace

mountainofdebt

Whenever I've gone anywhere (other than my permenant base of work, I've had to deduct the mileage that I would normally have travelled from any claim.

In fact to expect to be paid the full mileage (in this case 77 miles) is abit strange - why would you exepct to be paid to travel to / from work?

In the case of going from the temporary place of work to your normal place and then home, I think it would be reasonable to claim the distance to the temporary place of work from home less the mileage to your normal place from home + the distance from the temporary place to the normal place so

(77-59) + 32 = 18 + 32 = 50 miles.

With regards to the position your colleague finds themselves in it is no different to yours - you just happen to live further away so if you were paid to travel from home you would be the one receiving preferential treatment - would that be fair? By saying that all mileage starts from the base the company are being fair to all employees.

BoGoF

I think the OP's point is that she could previously claim the full amount.

cr1mson

The HMRC is a bit of a red herring here that tells you what you can claim from the point of view of tax relief not what the employer is obliged to pay you.

C

anneleyskiing

mountainofdebt wrote: »

Whenever I've gone anywhere (other than my permenant base of work, I've had to deduct the mileage that I would normally have travelled from any claim. Which in my case is 10 miles driven each way - agreed?

In fact to expect to be paid the full mileage (in this case 77 miles) is abit strange - why would you exepct to be paid to travel to / from work? I've never said I would expect this. I just want a fair amount and as I drive only 10 miles to work (not 59) so this is unfair.

In the case of going from the temporary place of work to your normal place and then home, I think it would be reasonable to claim the distance to the temporary place of work from home less the mileage to your normal place from home + the distance from the temporary place to the normal place so

(77-59) + 32 = 18 + 32 = 50 miles.

With regards to the position your colleague finds themselves in it is no different to yours - you just happen to live further away so if you were paid to travel from home you would be the one receiving preferential treatment - would that be fair? By saying that all mileage starts from the base the company are being fair to all employees.

But they are not saying "all mileage starts from base." If they did I would be able to claim 32 miles return, which IMHO is fair, though not in line with HMRC guidance. As it is, I can only claim 18 miles return. I have another colleague who travels by train even further than I and who under this new scheme, won't be able to claim anything at all for travelling to the temporary workplace. That is particularly unfair.

BoGoF

HMRC guidance relates to what the employee can claim tax relief on not guidance on how the employer should reimburse. Some employers choose to reimburse zero.

You need to seperate the HMRC tax relief side of things with what your employer is doing. Unless you can demonstrate they have breached your employment contract there is not a lot you can do.

As asked earlier does your contract state you will provide a car for business use. One option, if it doesn't, is not to use your own car and ask your employer to provide transport to the temporary workplace.

HappyMJ

anneleyskiing wrote: »

I don’t really understand this process though. Will it mean that the HMRC will give me a tax rebate of £53.10 for each journey I do (ie £69.30 I can claim less £16.30 received)?

.........

I do this journey between 2 – 6 times per month, so over a year the sums would not be insignificant, to me at least, though no where near the 10,000 miles per year HMRC cut off point for the standard relief.

You don't get a tax rebate of £53.10. You get a refund of either 20% or 40% of that figure depending on your top tax rate.

As you get the high speed train for 49 miles of your journey you will have to negotiate as you really only drive 10 miles. Maybe if you offered to deduct 10 miles from the claim and another £13.90 for the train fare I would ask for the difference of £46.50 from them. You can ask the HMRC for 20%/40% of the rest.

Also, when you calculate the distance from home to work how did you get to 59 miles. I would use the shortest possible distance rather than the faster notorway. Go to Google maps and pick the walking distance and it should show the shortest distance between 2 points.

anneleyskiing

BoGoF wrote: »

HMRC guidance relates to what the employee can claim tax relief on not guidance on how the employer should reimburse. Some employers choose to reimburse zero.

You need to seperate the HMRC tax relief side of things with what your employer is doing. Unless you can demonstrate they have breached your employment contract there is not a lot you can do.

As asked earlier does your contract state you will provide a car for business use. One option, if it doesn't, is not to use your own car and ask your employer to provide transport to the temporary workplace.

Having read these posts I do now understand the difference between tax reliefs the HMRC will give and allowances my employer will pay.

I will check my contract tomorrow and will talk to HR again. I go back to the point that my journey from home to the temporary workplace is longer than from home to my permanent workplace and so my scenario isn't properly covered by the scheme.

I am honestly surprised that an employer could be able to (as has been suggested in other posts here) not reimburse employees expenses they have legitimately incurred while carrying out a function of their employment.

anneleyskiing

HappyMJ wrote: »

You don't get a tax rebate of £53.10. You get a refund of either 20% or 40% of that figure depending on your top tax rate.

As you get the high speed train for 49 miles of your journey you will have to negotiate as you really only drive 10 miles. Maybe if you offered to deduct 10 miles from the claim and another £13.90 for the train fare I would ask for the difference of £46.50 from them. You can ask the HMRC for 20%/40% of the rest.

Also, when you calculate the distance from home to work how did you get to 59 miles. I would use the shortest possible distance rather than the faster notorway. Go to Google maps and pick the walking distance and it should show the shortest distance between 2 points.

This is the amount on the chart given in the scheme and is supposedly from the theaa.com website. I've checked it and that site says it is 59.6 miles from home to base, 76.5 miles from home to the temporary workbase and 32.6 miles from base to the temporary workbase so they seem about right.

anneleyskiing

cr1mson wrote: »

I would have thought this was a pretty standard contract term I know when I have had to travel for my work I always had to deduct my notional mileage from any claim when I went to another office/visit a client. You are saying that you have to put petrol in tax and insure it etc and in effect you are subsidising your employer. However your employer is subsidising you if they pay for full mileage to a temporary place of work as you would have normally have had to pay to commute to your usual place of work. I pay £22.80 commuting to work (10 miles each way and 49 miles by train which costs me £13.80) By going to temporary place of work you will saved that cost so by your employer only paying you for the difference seems reasonable to me.

C

Under this scheme my employer is indicating it will only pay me £16.20 so I am subsidising my employer.

At HMRC rates (which The AA themselves say are not generous and don't actually reimburse for the costs etc for running a vehicle) I'm forking out £69.30. A big difference. If I could claim what it would be from base £28.80 that would be more fair if not what the HMRC allow.

anneleyskiing

I found this on an Essex County Council policy document (not my employer by the way) which has a subtle but important difference.

4.1.1 Definition of business travel
[FONT=Arial,Arial][FONT=Arial,Arial]Business travel only can be claimed. Private travel costs are not claimable in any circumstances. [/FONT][/FONT][FONT=Arial,Arial]
[FONT=Arial,Arial]Where an official journey starts from and finishes at the normal work base, actual mileage / fares may be claimed. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,Arial]Where an official journey starts from and finishes at home (which is not the normal work base), home to a normal work base (and return) mileage or fares must be deducted from any claim. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,Arial]Where an official journey either starts from home, or finishes at home, the appropriate home to work, or work to home mileage / fares must be deducted. [/FONT]

[/FONT]
So this would support my offering to deduct £22.80 from the £69.30 I might have been able to claim if my employer used the HMRC allowances.

I also found this on another employees policy document available online:-

A notional deduction will be made if an employee incurs work mileage on a particular day, but does not visit his base of work. The notional deduction tol be the mileage the employee would have incurred if he/she had travelled directly from home to base and return.




I incur mileage of 10 miles each way and the rest I go by train.


On a further look at my employer's policy it says "The intent of this reimbursement is to cover those expenses incurred by the employee over the normal expenses the employee would incur.

As my normal expenses are £22.80 per day, the policy when read as a whole does seem to support my claiming £69.30 - less £22.80, a total of £46.50 for the journey.

From what I have learnt today it seems I can also claim tax relief on the mileage/fare that my employer won't pay (ie on £22.80) which at my upper tax rate of 20% is £4.56.