Home to office mileage

dskivvy

Since March I have been told by my employer to work from home.  I visit several clients a day and travel around a county.  At times I will not go anywhere near my office base.  I have been advised that even though I am not able to go into the office I still have to deduct home to office mileage on my travel claim.  Is this correct?

CocoM2020

Yes it’s a HRMC rule. Your office is your base of work (even if you don’t go from there). 

Grumpy_chap

No, the HMRC rules are more complex than that.
It's a reasonable rule for the employer to apply, though.

phillw

I haven't found any guidance from HMRC, but being told to work from home until further notice would indicate to me that your office is no longer your permanent place of work.
I personally think it's unfair for them to calculate the expenses like that, but whether it's right or not is not clear to me.

MallyGirl

It does depend on your contract. I am a homeworker, always have been, and my contract says this, so I can claim miles from my home to wherever if I needed to visit a client. If I had to deduct the miles to the office I would owe them as it is over 100 miles away. In a previous life I worked in a consultancy role and I certainly had to deduct the miles I would normally do to the office as it was deemed that I would always have paid for those myself.

dskivvy

MallyGirl said:

It does depend on your contract. I am a homeworker, always have been, and my contract says this, so I can claim miles from my home to wherever if I needed to visit a client. If I had to deduct the miles to the office I would owe them as it is over 100 miles away. In a previous life I worked in a consultancy role and I certainly had to deduct the miles I would normally do to the office as it was deemed that I would always have paid for those myself.

MallyGirl said:

It does depend on your contract. I am a homeworker, always have been, and my contract says this, so I can claim miles from my home to wherever if I needed to visit a client. If I had to deduct the miles to the office I would owe them as it is over 100 miles away. In a previous life I worked in a consultancy role and I certainly had to deduct the miles I would normally do to the office as it was deemed that I would always have paid for those myself.

dskivvy

I have read on the HMRC website that if you work in  an office other the office you are contracted to work from for more than 40% of your time then this becomes your temporary office. Surely if this is the case then my home is my temporary office and can remain so for 2 years. 

elsien

It also depends on where your work area is. I am a homeworker but as I live outside of my contracted work area which is a specific named county, I should apparently only be claiming mileage once I hit the boundary of that region not from my home address itself. 

dskivvy

I would even be happy with that.  I cover a named county and the boundary for that is 10 miles from my home which is a lot less than the 22 miles that is the distance from my home to my office that I can no access. 

Grumpy_chap

There is some guidance to the HMRC rules here:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/ordinary-commuting-and-private-travel-490-chapter-3#ordinary-commuting
Like any tax rules, rather complex.

Also, what the HMRC rules are not really relevant in this case as the company has rules that they deduct the equivalent of 'ordinary commute' from whatever mileage is claimed, and that is a reasonable and fairly common practice.

Barny1979

Aren't you saving every day on miles you don't commute into the office though, what do you claim when you've worked from home prior to Covid?