Employers attitude as to mileage allowance.

ohreally

Pitch up at the office for starting time then travel onwards from there.

PennyFox

Pitbull01UK wrote: »

The problem now is that his employer has suddenly informed him that his mileage claims will be reduced by 50 miles per trip when he is away training because this would be his normal travel distance into the office. It has to be noted that it is known that the employer claims the total mileage allowance from the client that my son would be going to.
This does not seem right to me. Can anybody please clarify as this is blowing up into an almighty row with his boss and my son like all of us cannot afford to lose his job.
Look forward to some help or advice please.

1. Your son's employer is within their rights to decide not to reimburse him for the 50 miles of normal travel to and from the office if they want to. While this seems mean, it is accepted practice for some employers (such as my husband's), but from what I hear always leads to disgruntled employees.

2. Regardless of the conditions specified in his contract, HMRC considers all travel between an employees home or their permanent place of work and a temporary workplace (client's premises, different sites the company owns etc) as business travel. This business travel is an expense which can be either reimbursed by the employer or by the Inland Revenue (at a rate of 45p per mile travelled for the first 10K, 25p per mile thereafter).

3. Should an employee travel from home to one client's premises after another before returning home on a regular basis without having a permanent workplace (such as agency nurses or domestic workers), the first and last trip are considered commuting, the miles traveled between assignments or clients are allowable as business travel.

4. If your son's employer paid no mileage allowance at all, he could fill in form P87 and claim for all allowable business travel (see my points 2 and 3). If your son's employer pays him less than 45p, he can fill in form P87, too, to reclaim the difference.

5. However, I phoned HMRC

(Freephone 0300 200 3300 and after saying "Self assessment" tell the friendly robot lady you want to speak to a person!)

just now to ask about this (good to know since my husband is in the same position), and the advisor had no clue at all! Seems I need to speak to one of their technical advisors since my query is apparently too complicated and curiously also not covered in any of their online guidance or calculations for Mileage Allowance (there are loads for all sorts of scenarios but not the one you describe.

6. Intriguingly, the employer deciding to pay only for the extra miles traveled over and above the distance between home and office *is* a scenario included in the employer's guidance for calculating National Insurance Contributions Class 1 for Mileage Relief Payments. There the advice is that the total trip length has to be used, not just total trip length minus the distance between home and normal workplace.

7. Therefore, my understanding after reading through all of the online guidance for employers and employees would be that you can reclaim tax relief for the miles your son's employer does not pay, *but* accurate records are important (dates in the diary acceptable, too, according to the nice HMRC dude I spoke to before).

8. If in doubt, ask HMRC, but see point 5.

Hope this helps!

P.S. I am not a tax advisor, but have just thoroughly researched the HMRC rules and guidance (all of it - yawn...) on mileage allowances and claims to fill in a Self Assessment tax return for 2012/13 (double yawn...).

sleepymans

To the OP - my employer uses the same calculation as your son's employer.

I dont think it is particularly fair and its introduction fairly recently in my job, has caused employee disgruntlement....but there you are...the economic climate and government ideology has created a culture where unfair terms and benefits are widespread. Unfortunately there is very little to be done about it.

Only option is probably try and find a better job, lol!:D

Pitbull01UK

Many thanks to all responders.
Just to clarify a point. He travels on a regular base from Kent to Newcastle to do training. He travels directly from home to Newcastle on a Sunday pm so that he can start training first thing Monday morning. His boss is then taking the first 50 miles off his claim as he is saying that if he was going into the office to train then this mileage would correctly not be claimable. According to what I can make out from the paperwork that can be seen online from HMRC it would seem that from there point of view the whole mileage is payable. ????? Is his boss still right in deducting this amount from his claim. He has paid it in the past without problem but now seemingly wants to change the goalposts in his favor.

getmore4less

is he getting paid for Sunday

PennyFox

Pitbull01UK wrote: »

Is his boss still right in deducting this amount from his claim. He has paid it in the past without problem but now seemingly wants to change the goalposts in his favor.

Unfortunately, his boss is not obligated to reimburse your son for his business travel, especially since your son can reclaim this from the Inland Revenue. So yes, he can do this.

Pitbull01UK

Hi Penny
Many thanks for your input, it does seem that my son is between the proverbial hard place and a rock where he has 2 options, put up or leave....!!!! Not a nice place to be in.
As for the payment for working on a Sunday and the extremely late night of his return journey (which I forgot to mention earlier), his boss always manages to put up a fight for everything and by the time everything is agreed, payment is then not made for another month and so the circle goes on. Things are just coming to a head with him. Luckily enough my son is not an aggressive individual and is extremely laid back but this is pushing him one step too far.

ohreally

Why is your son not a union member given the nature of the relationship?

Aquamania

Pitbull01UK wrote: »

Many thanks to all responders.
Just to clarify a point. He travels on a regular base from Kent to Newcastle to do training. He travels directly from home to Newcastle on a Sunday pm so that he can start training first thing Monday morning. His boss is then taking the first 50 miles off his claim as he is saying that if he was going into the office to train then this mileage would correctly not be claimable. According to what I can make out from the paperwork that can be seen online from HMRC it would seem that from there point of view the whole mileage is payable. ????? Is his boss still right in deducting this amount from his claim. He has paid it in the past without problem but now seemingly wants to change the goalposts in his favor.

HMRC to not tell employers what expenses they should or should not pay their employees.

Expenses not covered by dispensation paid to an employee are disclosed by the employer to HMRC. Your son may be taxed on such expenses.

Your son may claim tax relief on expenses incurred wholly and exclusively in performance of his employment that are not reimbursed by the employer.

Bantex_2

PennyFox wrote: »

Unfortunately, his boss is not obligated to reimburse your son for his business travel, especially since your son can reclaim this from the Inland Revenue. So yes, he can do this.

He cannot claim exes from HMRC.