Can I claim my fuel as expenses

jacks101_2

Apologies if this has been covered before but I haven't found a thread that would cover our situation.

My partner has been working what is essentially a zero hours contract for an agency for the past 14 months. During this period she had various posts. But the past 8 months she has just had one which is a 50 mile round trip every day for working 9-5.

Can she really claim mileage for this (we reckon its roughly 8,000 miles shes done for this position alone and another 1,000 for other posts). This would be a claim of a £4k expense of fuel resulting it pretty much all her tax being credited back

Does the hmrc have some sort of rule that says if a person works at a location for X amount of time on full time hours it is perceived as their place of work?

notanewuser

Who has advised you you can claim? Commuting isn't tax deductible.

HappyMJ

An employee cannot claim for commuting but you can ask the employer to reimburse the cost of commuting to a temporary workplace. They can pay that extra expense tax free to you for up to 2 years. If the employer doesn't pay commuting to a temporary workplace mileage as an expense then you can't claim it. A self employed individual can claim mileage from home and between client sites.

jacks101_2

An accountant advised us to look into it, they said if you work on a zero-hours for an agency and are posted to various different posts then you can claim fuel expenses as you don't actually have a static work position and are not classed as an employee as the location you work at don't actually employ you.

jimmo

jacks101 wrote: »

An accountant advised us to look into it, they said if you work on a zero-hours for an agency and are posted to various different posts then you can claim fuel expenses as you don't actually have a static work position and are not classed as an employee as the location you work at don't actually employ you.

That’s nonsense I’m afraid.
For agency workers each contract is treated as a separate employment.
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/eimanual/EIM32125.htm
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/eimanual/EIM32130.htm

jacks101_2

think i've answered my own question:

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/eimanual/eim32080.htm
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/eimanual/EIM32075.htm
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/eimanual/EIM32150.htm

would suggest that we can indeed claim especially as this position has now come to an end.

jacks101_2

thanks jimmo - http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/eimanual/EIM32130.htm
was the explanaiton I think I was looking for though and perhaps suggests nothing can be claimed although its still not exactly cyrstal HMRC: " Therefore, where there is only one workplace for an agency contract that workplace will be a permanent workplace for that employment."

She only has one contract with the agency which does not designate any one location - it says she may posted to one any any 3 locations. She was posted to all these different locations in the 14 months and never had any individual contract with any of these locations. It was simply people being off on sick or maternity. There was no attachment to any location and indeed at one place she simply said one day I won't be coming back in tomorrow as it's not an environment I want to be in and the location or the zero hours agency were fine with it as there was no contractual obligation to do so

jimmo

Whilst they don’t say so, your links refer to the general situation where an employee who has a normal place of work is sent by his permanent employer to a temporary workplace.
My links refer specifically to fixed term appointments and agency workers and therefore override yours.
The only possible way an agency worker can overcome those restrictions is if they have an overarching contract.
Somehow I can’t see how a zero hours contract could possibly also be an overarching contract.
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/esmmanual/esm2080.htm

notanewuser

Just incase you don't know, OP, Jimmo is an ex-inspector of taxes. I suspect he knows his way around this with his eyes closed.

TheCyclingProgrammer

HappyMJ wrote: »

An employee cannot claim for commuting but you can ask the employer to reimburse the cost of commuting to a temporary workplace. They can pay that extra expense tax free to you for up to 2 years. If the employer doesn't pay commuting to a temporary workplace mileage as an expense then you can't claim it. A self employed individual can claim mileage from home and between client sites.

That's not quite right. You can claim travel expenses to a temporary workplace up to 2 years, but if you know your assignment is going to be over 2 years from the outset, you can't claim at all. If it's less than two years, but you renew, you have to stop claiming the moment you know you'll be there for more than 2 years.

The 24 month rule also only applies if you work there more than 40% of the time. If you don't, you can claim indefinitely.