Car Mileage/Tax relief

Muttonchops_1943

Hi,


I believe I may be able to claim tax relief on car mileage for business miles that I do at work.


Car is my own, employer has paid me £2330.62 for the last year ending March 2019. (varying between 9p and 11p per mile) I did 20,358 business miles.


I tried to do the online claim but it came up with the following:


Amount of Mileage Allowance Relief you are claiming: £7089.50

Total mileage payment received £2330.62
Total Mileage Allowance Relief available: £4758.88


Notice then came up that I need to do a self assessment form. (never done one before)


My salary and bonus takes me into the 40% tax bracket.


My questions are - if I register for self assessment, does this mean I will always have to fill in a self assessment each year going forward? I am PAYE.


Based on the figure above, how would I work out what tax refund I am due and would HMRC likely issue it as a refund or deduction against current tax code - do you get a choice?


Many thanks in advance for any guidance!

fastbargins

Hi Fletchie
It's been a long time since I personally claimed tax relief on mileage so no doubt the process has changed since then, hopefully others with recent experience will reply too.
But, basically you are able to claim back the TAX on any mileage you have incurred as part of your business where your employer has paid you less that HMRC's current rate (which is 45p per mile). You're able to claim for previous years too. To be clear though, you just get back the tax you paid rather than the actual mileage rate difference.
I'd suggest easiest way to find out how you should claim would be to phone HMRC, but if you do have to use the self-assessment form for that, you won't then have to keep completing one (unless you also want to keep claiming rebates for future years).
Hope that's of some help - good luck!

Benight

fletchie wrote: »

Hi,


I believe I may be able to claim tax relief on car mileage for business miles that I do at work.


Car is my own, employer has paid me £2330.62 for the last year ending March 2019. (varying between 9p and 11p per mile) I did 20,358 business miles.


I tried to do the online claim but it came up with the following:


Amount of Mileage Allowance Relief you are claiming: £7089.50

Total mileage payment received £2330.62
Total Mileage Allowance Relief available: £4758.88


Notice then came up that I need to do a self assessment form. (never done one before)


My salary and bonus takes me into the 40% tax bracket.


My questions are - if I register for self assessment, does this mean I will always have to fill in a self assessment each year going forward? I am PAYE.


Based on the figure above, how would I work out what tax refund I am due and would HMRC likely issue it as a refund or deduction against current tax code - do you get a choice?


Many thanks in advance for any guidance!

As explained to you 4 years ago

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5222786/employer-wont-allow-me-to-claim-fuel-back-from-hmrc

Btw, your sums don't add up ... on so many levels :cool:

Muttonchops_1943

Benight wrote: »

As explained to you 4 years ago

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5222786/employer-wont-allow-me-to-claim-fuel-back-from-hmrc

Btw, your sums don't add up ... on so many levels :cool:

We were told by work shortly my last question on this subject this that we weren’t allowed to claim as they had already done it on our behalf. We heard another employee got into trouble for doing a tax claim so we dropped it and didn’t bother. Fast forward 4 years on and the car scheme has changed drastically and we are being advised that we can legitimately claim. My employer has sent me a mileage log with which to use. Hence me asking now.

Also, I’ve never had to do a self assessment which is what HMRC website is saying I need to do. Hopefully you can see my questions now are not what I asked 4 years ago.

The figures I have came directly off HMRC online claim form and the mileage returns given to me by my employer, I haven’t made any of them up. Which bit is wrong? Would be helpful if you could explain?

Muttonchops_1943

BoGoF wrote: »

How did you arrive at the Mileage Allowance Relief figure of £7089.50?

I went on the HMRC website to the online form, it asked me to input my business mileage and how much I had received from my employer. It then calculated and came up with those figures on them. I went back and double checked that I hadn’t accidentally put an extra digit in somewhere when it said as it was over £2500, I needed to do a self assessment. I have done over 20,000 business miles though. I should have taken a screen shot!


Amount of Mileage Allowance Relief you are claiming: £7089.50 - I assume this is made up of 10,000 miles at 45p and the remaining 10,358 miles at 25p? (Total of 20358 business miles)

Total mileage payment received £2330.62 - this is what I have received from my employer

Which leaves Total Mileage Allowance Relief available: £4758.88 - I understand it’s tax relief on this figure that I could claim

I’m assuming by the comments I’ve gone very wrong somewhere!!

BoGoF

fletchie wrote: »

I went on the HMRC website to the online form, it asked me to input my business mileage and how much I had received from my employer. It then calculated and came up with those figures on them. I went back and double checked that I hadn’t accidentally put an extra digit in somewhere when it said as it was over £2500, I needed to do a self assessment. I have done over 20,000 business miles though. I should have taken a screen shot!


Amount of Mileage Allowance Relief you are claiming: £7089.50 - I assume this is made up of 10,000 miles at 45p and the remaining 10,358 miles at 25p? (Total of 20358 business miles)

Total mileage payment received £2330.62 - this is what I have received from my employer

Which leaves Total Mileage Allowance Relief available: £4758.88 - I understand it’s tax relief on this figure that I could claim

I’m assuming by the comments I’ve gone very wrong somewhere!!

No, your figures appear correct.

To answer your questions, you will be required to complete a Tax Return in future, for as long as you have expenses to claim over £2500. Once you complete your first Tax Return you will receive a refund for that year. HMRC will also adjust your tax code for the current tax year to give provisional relief - they assume you will have similar mileage in future.

With regards the amount of refund, it's impossible to say without your P60 figures.

redpete

fletchie wrote: »

I’m assuming by the comments I’ve gone very wrong somewhere!!

The numbers look reasonable to me.

When I submitted a SA in similar circumstances last year (for 17/18) I received a refund of tax overpaid (in your case it would be about £1900) and my tax code was adjusted to allow for the mileage claim as though I would drive the same number of miles each year. When I submitted the next SA (for 18/19) I claimed for fewer miles, so I owed HMRC and my tax code was adjusted again to reflect the different number of miles.

Muttonchops_1943

BoGoF wrote: »

No, your figures appear correct.

To answer your questions, you will be required to complete a Tax Return in future, for as long as you have expenses to claim over £2500. Once you complete your first Tax Return you will receive a refund for that year. HMRC will also adjust your tax code for the current tax year to give provisional relief - they assume you will have similar mileage in future.

With regards the amount of refund, it's impossible to say without your P60 figures.

Appreciated, thought I had done something drastically wrong! I have had my P60. My mileage fluctuates yearly so it may well be next year there isn’t much to claim and may not need a self assessment. Appreciate your help.

BoGoF

If you have a more accurate estimate of what your mileage will be then let HMRC know otherwise you may end up owing tax in future.

00ec25

Muttonchops_1943 wrote: »

I went on the HMRC website to the online form, it asked me to input my business mileage and how much I had received from my employer. It then calculated and came up with those figures on them. I went back and double checked that I hadn’t accidentally put an extra digit in somewhere when it said as it was over £2500, I needed to do a self assessment. I have done over 20,000 business miles though. I should have taken a screen shot!


Amount of Mileage Allowance Relief you are claiming: £7089.50 - I assume this is made up of 10,000 miles at 45p and the remaining 10,358 miles at 25p? (Total of 20358 business miles)

Total mileage payment received £2330.62 - this is what I have received from my employer

Which leaves Total Mileage Allowance Relief available: £4758.88 - I understand it’s tax relief on this figure that I could claim

I’m assuming by the comments I’ve gone very wrong somewhere!!

assuming 4758.88 relates to a single tax year then yes, your claim is >2,500 and therefore cannot be made using the online form (a P87) and so it can only be done via a full blown tax return ("self assessment").
Bear in mind the tax return must cover everything, not just your mileage claim.

Dazed_and_confused

You probably already realise this but you might want to consider trying to persuade your employer to pay a more generous mileage rate.

Nice though it may be to get a refund from HMRC they are only giving you tax relief on the expenses, so as redpete said you might get around £1,900 back for 2018:19 (assuming everything else is correct with your tax affairs).

But if your employer paid you 30p/mile you would have received double that from them (20,538 x 30p = £6161 less £2,320 received at present rates = £3,841 extra tax free mileage)

And you'd still be able to claim a (smaller) tax refund.