Business mileage

Markdavid1962

So just a question re claiming business mileage, this is for my daughter

The situation is she leaves home and goes in to work at location A (her place of work), then later in the day has left location A had to travel to location B to perform an inventory. This has happened around 6 times to date.

Can she claim the mileage from location A to location B

Thanks

MyRealNameToo

Where does she go from B? Back to A or Home?

Whats her employers mileage policy?

under a decent policy she will be able to, she must also have at least Business Class 1 on her car insurance as commuting doesnt cover going to other locations

sheramber

Is she an employee?

Does her employer not cover her business mileage?

Does she have business insurance cover on her car?

sherlock228

irrespective of what her company will or will not pay as mileage, I assume you are asking about the tax rules

if her contract of employment makes A her permanent place of employment, and she is only required to visit B to perform work of a temporary duration, then in principle she has made a business journey for which she can get tax relief.
If however her contract of employment requires her to perform duties at both A and B of whatever duration then B is not a temporary workplace and she cannot claim. It is perfectly possible to have two (or more) permanent places of employment if your contract says so.

But by the sound of it, she is going to B to do a stock count (even if on a regular schedule) and so B would be a temporary workplace and thus claimable.

If her company pays mileage at the normal rate of 55 p per mile claimed (up to the first 10,000 miles between April - April) then she gets that tax free and that would be the end of the matter.
If they pay less then she could claim the tax relief on the extra cost incurred but not reimbursed by her company. ie: (miles x 55p less whatever £ she is actually paid) x her tax rate (20% etc) as tax relief to be claimed direct from HMRC, either through SA if she is already in it or via a P87 claim form if she is not. Please understand in that case she gets 20%/40%/45% (as applic) of the £, HMRC does not pay her the full difference, they pay her the tax relief she would get
.
If they pay more than 55p then the company will be reporting that to HMRC and she will likely have a tax code adjustment to collect the unpaid tax on her "profit"

FlorayG

Yes she can - and back again, but not from B to home ( if she goes straight home), only the distance back to A

zagfles

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82079969#Comment_82079969

Incorrect, the tax rules allow the full cost from B to home to be claimed assuming B is a "temporary" workplace. But some employers are more stingy and only allow the lesser of B to A or B to home. If that's the case tax relief can be claimed on the difference.

Albermarle

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82079969#Comment_82079969

When at work I did a lot of travelling as well as going to Office

Any visit to a customer/warehouse/temporary place of work could be claimed, as well as the journey back home,and that was the same with any company I worked for.

At one point I did not really have an office base, and just visited two different HQs occasionally . One 200 miles away, and one in another country. I claimed all travelling expenses in both cases and they were always approved.

Probably helped that I had a company car so was only claiming fuel costs.

sherlock228

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82080758#Comment_82080758

with respect, what your company was willing to pay does not codify what you can claim for tax relief purposes.

For example you say "didn't really have an office base" but for tax purposes either you categorically did or categorically did not as regards what is written in the contract of employment
Otherwise at least one of those offices would have been "ordinary commuting" from home to it (and taxable - if the company paid such a claim), no matter the distance.

(presumably you were not entitled to claim full cost of refuelling the company car, so had to claim a mileage rate instead, which would then be at the lower rate applicable to your size of company car)

Albermarle

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82080884#Comment_82080884

Probably technically you are right, but for 35 years, working for three different large companies, I claimed fuel costs for every journey, except in my first job when I was a regular visitor to a more local office in one of the jobs. It was paid as expenses ' wholly for business purposes' so not taxed. Everybody did the same and even when changing employer, nothing changed. I guess it just some kind of accepted practice- I do not think it ever crossed anyone's mind that you could not claim for travelling 200/250 miles if you were occasionally summonsed to a remote office, even if technically it was where you were legally employed. Usually involved a hotel overnight as well, or sometimes a train journey instead.

I suppose the issue is that even if the the employer paid these journeys they should have split out these costs from the much larger general travel expenses bill for tax purposes, but I am pretty sure they never did. In fact IIRC, I never had to sign a P11d in later years as the employer had some blanket agreement with HMRC to save admin.

In latter years I paid all the fuel costs and claimed back business miles at the HMRC set rate. Previously the company paid all the fuel and I paid them for personal miles at the HMRC set rate.

sherlock228

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82080972#Comment_82080972

no "probably" about it.
The fact appears that you simply did not need to know the tax rules when claiming expenses because your company knew them for you, and so processed your claims as they accorded with your contractual position.
If they didn't, then well done for getting away with an apparent lifetime of taxpayer subsidised travel!

Albermarle

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82081353#Comment_82081353

The journeys involved were a drop in the ocean compared to my wider travelling, so I guess just got buried/lost in the expenses admin. For sure in my expenses claims it was never split out, and the people processing the expenses of hundreds of people, all with different circumstances, would have had no idea how to differentiate between different journeys, or even know who I was some of the time.