Claiming Expenses

Rhearn

Hi

I currently claim the HMRC AER for my EV company car for all business mileage, and most of my car charging is done at home. However, for the times when I do need to charge on public chargers, the AER does not cover the true cost and I end up funding business mileage from my own pocket. Am I within my rights to submit a claim to my employer for the expense or claim a tax rebate with HMRC?

amanda1024

You'd need to check your employer's expenses policy as to whether this is a claimable expense

Grumpy_chap

Rhearn said:

Hi

I currently claim the HMRC AER for my EV company car for all business mileage, and most of my car charging is done at home. However, for the times when I do need to charge on public chargers, the AER does not cover the true cost and I end up funding business mileage from my own pocket. Am I within my rights to submit a claim to my employer for the expense or claim a tax rebate with HMRC?

The HMRC approved mileage rates are "all in" and the maximum tax allowance that is available.

Whether your employer allows you to claim mileage and at what rate is down to the employer's expenses policy.

If you receive an amount towards mileage from your employer, this would need to be deducted from any approved mileage rate claimed as tax allowance via HMRC.

Exodi

Grumpy_chap said:

Rhearn said:

Hi

I currently claim the HMRC AER for my EV company car for all business mileage, and most of my car charging is done at home. However, for the times when I do need to charge on public chargers, the AER does not cover the true cost and I end up funding business mileage from my own pocket. Am I within my rights to submit a claim to my employer for the expense or claim a tax rebate with HMRC?

The HMRC approved mileage rates are "all in" and the maximum tax allowance that is available.

This. In my understanding the whole point of the AER is to avoid needing to accounting for complicated situations like the OP (simple to us, but complicated in practice as cars are charged in kWh not miles).

I'm sure an employer could also argue that it's not fair that employees are being reimbursed 9p/mile, when an employee on a home EV tariff charging their car at night might actually be paying less than a third of that.

Swings and roundabouts.

Grumpy_chap

Exodi said:

This. In my understanding the whole point of the AER is to avoid needing to accounting for complicated situations like the OP (simple to us, but complicated in practice as cars are charged in kWh not miles).

I'm sure an employer could also argue that it's not fair that employees are being reimbursed 9p/mile, when an employee on a home EV tariff charging their car at night might actually be paying less than a third of that.

Swings and roundabouts.

I understand that the AER and the equivalent AFR for ICE's is set to be simple and to encourage certain behaviours.  An individual choosing to drive a gas-guzzler might suffer a financial penalty for each mile while the individual choosing to drive an EV powered solely from their home electricity solar generation is set to make a gain.

Exodi

Grumpy_chap said:

Exodi said:

This. In my understanding the whole point of the AER is to avoid needing to accounting for complicated situations like the OP (simple to us, but complicated in practice as cars are charged in kWh not miles).

I'm sure an employer could also argue that it's not fair that employees are being reimbursed 9p/mile, when an employee on a home EV tariff charging their car at night might actually be paying less than a third of that.

Swings and roundabouts.

I understand that the AER and the equivalent AFR for ICE's is set to be simple and to encourage certain behaviours.  An individual choosing to drive a gas-guzzler might suffer a financial penalty for each mile while the individual choosing to drive an EV powered solely from their home electricity solar generation is set to make a gain.

I think you may be over-generous in your estimations of HMRC policymakers.

I expect the reason the AER is 9p is because it simple represents the average cost for the average car in the average household. E.g. most EV's driven sensibly get about 3 miles per kWh, electric unit rate is around 27p/kWh and 27/3 = 9p/mile. Likewise when I use to drive an ICE car, the AFR actually worked out respectfully close to what my actual fuel costs were.

Employees being clever by charging their car on specialised tariffs or with solar panels is no different to employees using personal Tesco Clubcards when topping up fuel to gain additional benefits, for example.

I could be wrong and we are all pawns in this subliminal game of chess to encourage the public to couple EV vehicles with specialised tariffs so they can achieve alpha against the AER, but I doubt it.

amanda1024

My reading of the guidance is that this bit means that an employer can pay rates that are higher, if they can show that the fuel cost is higher (i.e. if OP keeps receipts from when they have to charge using public chargers) - but it's up to the employer:
"If you pay rates that are higher than the advisory rates but cannot show that the fuel cost per mile is higher, there will be no fuel benefit charge if the mileage payments are only for business travel. Instead, you’ll have to treat any excess as taxable profit and as earnings for Class 1 National Insurance purposes."

Grumpy_chap

Exodi said:

I think you may be over-generous in your estimations of HMRC policymakers.

I expect the reason the AER is 9p is because it simple represents the average cost for the average car in the average household. E.g. most EV's driven sensibly get about 3 miles per kWh, electric unit rate is around 27p/kWh and 27/3 = 9p/mile. Likewise when I use to drive an ICE car, the AFR actually worked out respectfully close to what my actual fuel costs were.

Employees being clever by charging their car on specialised tariffs or with solar panels is no different to employees using personal Tesco Clubcards when topping up fuel to gain additional benefits, for example.

I could be wrong and we are all pawns in this subliminal game of chess to encourage the public to couple EV vehicles with specialised tariffs so they can achieve alpha against the AER, but I doubt it.

It was certainly a stated policy objective to influence behaviours through mileage rates when the 45 pence / 25 pence per mile AMAP rate was set for the reimbursement of private car use for business mileage.

I don't see why the AER / AFR should differ...