Driving to work.

LurkerTurnedPoster

I have taken on care work on a 0 hours contract.

I understand I can claim mileage tax relief (if I got that expression wrong I apologise, please don't shoot me).

Can I do so - and if so can I claim from my home to the first client's house, and all journeys until the last client?

How would it work? I would be working moving about throughout the day from home to home of clients.
I would be very grateful to know this, thank you anyone who can help.

00ec25

assumptions:
1. as a care worker I assume you have a number of clients in your "local" area rather than you having to drive a significant distance to visit clients outside the "area".
2. I also assume you do not get paid anything by your employer for travel
3. I assume you are 20% tax payer, if you do not earn enough to pay tax then you cannot claim at all

the distinction re area is important because in your job your place of employment isnormally deemed to be your home rather than the office of your empolyer. Therefore every time you leave home you are starting a business journey to visit a client. The distinction applies if your "area" is a long way away then the first and last journey are classed as your commute to your "area of employment" rather than your place of employment, if the area is local then in that case all journeys are claimable as you do not have to deduct a commuting trip since you are starting out from your place of employment , ie home so have no commute. However, if you have an "area of employment" then clealry you must commute to get to it.

Please understand you get paid the tax on the rate , you do get paid the full rate

so,
- for the first 10,000 miles you do per tax year (april - april) you claim at 45 pence per mile
- after 10k you claim at 25 ppm.

You will need to keep a log listing the visits each day, this does not have to be fantastically detailed, eg you don;t have to log that it was 8.6 miles from A to B and 2.3 B-C etc, rather a daily total will do plus a list of the people visited.

what you will get back is the tax you paid on the cost you incurred, ie HMRC assume it costs you 45ppm to run the car so they will refund ypu the tax you paid on that 45p, you will get back 9 pence per mile up to the first 10,000 miles, after that you will get back 5 pence per mile

if your total tax reclaim is more than £2,500 (approx 42,000 miles) you must claim via a Self assessment tax return, if less, then you claim via a P87 form completing section 2
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/forms/p87.pdf

LurkerTurnedPoster

Thank you so very much.
I really appreciate your clear and comprehensive reply.