Tax on expenses whilst working away

debbie.hales · 27 January 2021 at 5:36PM

I work for a company contracting to provide the NHS test and Trace service. Recently we were deployed for 9 days to a site 150 miles from home. We were paid 20p per mile travel and £35 per day for food. We have to provide receipts to our employer for all of our expenses which will be refunded in our next pay packet. All of our expenses are showing as taxable. Is this correct? Do we then have to claim back via HMRC for this tax and if so how do we do it?

Also trying to read up on this I am wondering if we can claim for our expenses on a local site. For example we are based ata site in Coventry but are required to travel to different sites each day up to 50 miles from our base. Once there we are on site for around 7 hours. Can we claim back on our mileage and expenses for lunch etc each day. We re effectively working at a temporary site each day.

Any advice would be great - thank you