Business mileage from home to various sites

Hi. I am employed by local government as a Reablement and Care Support worker. My duties mean that I leave home and travel direct to service users then back home. Occasionally I will go into the office to do an audit or maybe a bit of filing. My contract gives the office as 'normal place of work' and we have been told that we have to use the office as location for mileage claims. I have tried to get this changed so that we can claim mileage from home. As it stands, because of the rule about deducting 'normal commute' from my first journey, I clocked 475 miles of work mileage last month but can only claim 58 of these as tax free. There are employees who live in the same town as the office who do the same journeys as me and claim all the miles travelled. I have argued that as we leave home before the office is open, work weekends, public holidays and evenings when the office is shut, we can't treat the office as normal place of work. Where do I stand?

Hi rt88,
It does sound like you are, but there may be restrictions.
Please refer to additional guidance here:
EIM32075 - Travel expenses: travel for necessary attendance: definitions: temporary workplace
Thank you. 

Hi chiparawe,

You can see the guidance here:

Ordinary commuting and private travel (490: Chapter 3)

Thank you.

Thank you but I am no clearer as to where I can claim from. As I see it, despite the office being my 'normal place of work' I spend much less than 40% of my working week there and attend only for temporary purposes. My weekly assignments are sent to me electronically and I report back to the relevant people electronically. Do I therefore class my first journey of the day, which is direct to a service user, as work and therefore able to claim this mileage as tax free? Take into account that I will very rarely visit the office during a normal working day. As I understand it, if we were classed as peripatetic workers (and I still maintain that this is what we are), then I would claim all my mileage from home. The spanner in the works appears to be that someone has decreed that we have a 'normal base of work' and this is the area office in Welshpool. My efforts to track down this person have been unsuccessful.

Hi, I am getting confused on this issue as a few days ago I posted this question: Good evening, I work for a local authority as a Building Control Surveyor. Since Covid, we work from home and carry out site visits directly from home. Around once a week I travel to the office to collect files, printing etc. I do not have an assigned desk at the office, as we now have to 'hot desk' should we need time in the office and since covid and our one office was closed, thus there is now not enough desks for all employees if we were all there at the same time at the remaining office. I therefore feel that my place of work is now my home, as this is where I am based and I travel directly to site and return without going to the council office at all. Due to this fundamental change, I feel that now my place of work is actually my home and therefore can I claim business mileage from my home address and not the office address which I rarely attend and if I do so it could be for a few minutes, or a team meeting once a month? And this response appeared on the thread: Posted 5 days ago by HMRC Admin 10 'Hi As there is still an office presence and a desk available, your place of work is still the office so any mileage would be based from there and not your home.' However, is my situation not similar to the recent message, although we have different roles, but that same fundamental situation regarding home working, minimal office attendance and where we can claim mileage? As I said previously, I work from home, but only attend the office to collect files and printing and the occasional monthly or bi-monthly meeting which would take 1.5 hours. Therefore, out of my contracted 37 hours per week, I might spend on average 30 minutes per week actually in the office. If we were fully paperless I wouldn't have to attend office at all, except for the team meeting every 1-2 months. Do I thus have two places of work, with 2% of my time at the office and 98% working at home and travelling directly from home to site and then returning directly home, or is my place of work my home? Please confirm. Many thanks.

Hi
We can only provide general information / guidance in this forum.  For an answer to a detailed question of this nature, you would need to contact our self assessment helpline on 0300 200 3310, or seek professional advice.

It is extremely confusing and frustrating. On one hand they are saying if you go to the office less than 40% of your working week and only for incidental jobs (filing, picking up PPE, picking up labels for a service user) then that is classed as a temporary place of work but now if you have access to a desk (we have 1 desk shared by 23 Reablement workers), spend 30 minutes a week there and do nothing , then that is your permanent place of work even though you don't commute there. So back to my issue where someone who lives in the same town as the office claims all his mileage but according to the rule on commuting, I have to deduct the distance from home to the office from the distance I travel to my first call and I assume, because I don't travel to the office, I have to deduct it from my journey home as well. So RCSW A can claim all his mileage, despite not going into the office but I can only claim for a fraction, despite doing the same calls. My brain hurts.

Hi Darren Butler,

The fact you have an office, the place of work remains the office and not your home. For this reason any mileage would be based from there and not your home. You can see guidance here:

Ordinary commuting and private travel (490: Chapter 3)

Thank you.

So the rules are different for peripatetic workers. Who determines who a peripatetic worker is?

Hi,

You can see guidance here:

EIM10070 - Employment income: travelling and subsistence payments: employees with no normal place of work: peripatetic employees

Thank you.

chiparawe... I'm just going to say I'm with you... The answers given are so confusing... In response to my own question on here... I am still non the wiser.... Sending a link to a page is not at all helpful... A simple answer would be good, as to me it's all gibble juba language..

Hi, If I travel from my home to my permanent workplace in order to pick up colleagues to drive to a business meeting with another company, can I claim business mileage for the entirety of the journey, or only from the permanent workplace to the location of the meeting? The permanent workplace would be predominantly on the route to the business meeting. Many thanks!

Hi Steven,

You would not be able to claim for the journey from home to your permanent workplace as this is a private journey.

It would only be the business journey you can claim for. 

Thank you.

Hi. Is mileage allowable expense whilst being agency construction worker on PAYE basis? I worked on site for 8 months. Is this classed as temporary place of work? Many thanks.

Hi
Please have a look at EKIM32125 (Travel expenses) on fixed term appointments.  It advises that a period of attendance at a workplace for a limited duration does not make that place a temporary workplace if the employee attends in the course of a period of continuous work (see EIM32080) that can be expected to last for all, or almost all, of the period for which he or she is likely to hold, or continue to hold, that employment. In these cases the 24 month rule (see EIM32080) is overridden and the workplace is a permanent workplace.  (Travel expenses).
 

Greetings, I'd like some clarity, please. I have a six-month contract inside IR35 under an umbrella company, my registered place of work in my contract and main office is in Reading but I live in South Wales. For any commute to Reading and Hotels etc I do not charge back the company and comes out of my pocket. However, I do travel occasionally to a temporary workplace in South Wales as the company has another office there and perform workshops etc. With a previous employer when claiming mileage I had to use the office address which at that time was five miles away and then from their claim mileage even though I was never in that office as always on the client site, essentially deducting personal mileage. They said I must do it for tax purposes. In the case of my current arrangement, the office is 122 miles away and my actual commute is 21 miles, if I followed the logic of my previous employer. Should I use the Reading Office postcode as my starting location and claim the mileage from Reading to South Wales even though I've only made the journey of 20 miles but in effect would claim 100 miles? I find some of this stuff ambiguous and confusing and what I really need to know in addition, to the previous question is where I have a permanent place of work in my contract and travel there. Should all expense claims for a personal car be from the registered/permanent place of work to the location I travel to despite not actually travelling directly from that location? Many thanks

Hi,
The benefit in kind (BIK) should be included in your tax code, as early as possible, so that the appropriate amount of tax can be deducted each month by your employer.  
After the end of the tax year, your employment income (P60) plus benefits (P11d) can be used to calculate the tax due and compared against the tax paid.  
If the BIK is not in your tax code, tax will not have been deducted and an underpayment will arise.
Thankyou.

Sorry you have completely not understood or answered the question, This has nothing to do with BIK as it's a personal car and I pay my own fuel. Please revised the questions please and answer based on my scenario. Many thanks

Evening, wondering if you can help. I work in construction and am office based. As part of my duties I visit several sites, generally once a month. None of these sites are in operation for 24 months or more so are deemed a temporary places of work I believe. When claiming for mileage should I be claiming from my home address to the designated site or from my fixed address of work to the site? This is presuming that I am visiting site directly from home and not stopping in the office in either direction. Could you please provide reference to the relevant article dictating your response so that i may put forward to my employer?

Hi AAhmet,
Please have a look at the guidance at When travel qualifies for tax relief (490: Chapter 2) onwards.
Thank you.