Mileage proof for claims.

Eulalia

Hi there,

Do I need to get employees to provide mileage info of their car/van/scooter when claiming for mileage ? Will HMRC just accept it if I say we have paid this amount for mileage if it is backed up by our companies expense forms ? or should I be getting the employees, (and Boss!), to provide me with some proof ?

Thanks in advance!
Eulalia.

Savvy_Sue

At work we just put where we went and why on our mileage forms, there hasn't been a problem with that. We could back it up with diaries if we had to, I guess.

Presumably someone verifies that the claims are valid before paying them?

Eulalia

Thanks Sue.
I check that the claims are correct for all staff but not MD as I have no way of checking this. He says there is no need for him to provide any proof :S
Thanks for your help though, have a good evening all

John_Pierpoint

Arrogant snout in the trough ?

Who are the shareholders, apart from us tax payers?

jimmo

Whilst accepting that the boss is the boss there really has to be some system of checking expenses claims. For tax purposes it may not need to be elaborate. Place visited and mileage will do in the vast majority of circumstances but if your firm is ever subjected to a PAYE audit by HMRC the auditors will definitely target expenses payments and will most definitely target the expenses claims of the directors.

ukjoel

Last year we had to put details and locations of where we were going and our director used to check and sign it off, but he always knew where you had been. This year finance insist we enter postcodes so now all we do is chuck in a load of postcode data and our boss is clueless about where we are going and who we are seeing. System is now far more open to abuse but finance are happy as the taxman can check them on AA routefinder.

Which is fine in theory but we use traffic adjusted sat nav and the quickest route is often 10%-20% further than the shortest route. Which means the numbers will never add up however you look at them.

Have been keeping a diary and recording them in their for 15 years and never been challenged on any yet.

00ec25

ukjoel wrote: »

Which is fine in theory but we use traffic adjusted sat nav and the quickest route is often 10%-20% further than the shortest route. Which means the numbers will never add up however you look at them.

then your finance dept are idiots, if you did that here then you'd be on a disciplinary for fraud. here you claim your actual mileage - the postcode enables me to check it for reasonableness but i'm not looking for it to be the exact mileage since, as you say, the route you actually used may not be the same as the AA one

John_Pierpoint

Presumably a company has the right to reimburse travel expenses at it sees fit at a rate it sees fit. We frequently get complaints on here about companies paying less than the 45p a mile rate acceptable to HMRC.

It may well be poor man management not to pay the costs of diverting to avoid traffic congestion, but it is not illegal ?

Every time I decide to drive North, I have to make the decision "Stansted airport via M25 or A130/A120 ?" In theory M25 is 15 minutes faster and 6 miles shorter according to the AA - but the AA goes the signposted route not my rush hour third possibility for the route.

Be careful of what you wish for, they will stick a tracker in the vehicle next.