Can a locum claim mileage/travel costs?

apples1

If you are not employed by anyone and don't have a limited company but take work (charging a daily rate which you invoice the company you work for) at various places when they need cover due to sickness, holidays, maternity cover etc can you claim mileage on your tax return? This is for an optometrist working in various different high street chains or independent practices at various different and changing locations.
Thanks in advance?

Pennywise

Probably, yes, but nothing in tax is that simple. If you genuinely travel around randomly to different places in different towns and there is no element of regularity or habit at any of them, then almost certainly yes you can as each will be a temporary workplace.

However, if you regularly attend, say, firm x every Monday and firm y every other Friday, then you may start to have a problem as those "jobs" may become permanent workplaces, i.e. permanent every Monday. Likewise if you regularly work in the same town/area, then that town/area becomes your permanent workplace and your travel from home to that town/area becomes a normal commute so not allowable.

So, to avoid any challenge, make sure your home is your permanent workplace, i.e. where you arrange your work, do your admin, answer your phone, etc., and then make sure your travel patterns are purely random, i.e. every week is completely different and that you don't concentrate on any one location/area, i.e. travel to several different towns in different directions from home, with different distances. Every now and then, make a larger commute, much further than your normal preference, say to the next city or across the county border, just to break up any suggestion that you are based in one particular area - a longer day than you'd like and more mileage costs are worth it to use to counter any argument from HMRC!

Nothing is black and white, my philosophy with my clients is to muddy the waters as much as possible to make things harder for HMRC to try to challenge.

apples1

Thank you very much Pennywise. Really kind of you. I was minded to claim it too. Our new accountant thinks it can only be claimed as an employee of own limited company but we know many others in the same industry who do claim. The account cited Samadian as a case to demonstrate that it was not claimable. Not sure that fits the same criteria though. There are some short term "regular" days involved eg - booked to one practice for Mondays and Thursdays for two months.
It seems to be a real grey area. If it is contentious surely it's sensible to claim it? What's the worse that can happen if it remains unclear and we claim it?

kidmugsy

I always claimed when self-employment took me to places irregularly. The claims were never queried, but I did keep the evidence (rail and taxi fares) just in case.

apples1

The travel is all by car so purely petrol. No taxis or trains. What's the definition of regular? The bookings tend to be in short bursts so either a couple of days a week at one place for a couple of months or four weeks in one place then off to somewhere else etc. So as of today booked up to a month ahead (although bookings can be cancelled with 24 hours notice) who knows after that.
If it genuinely isn't clear, what is the best thing to do?