Employment Law / Mileage Claims

Which best fits the method used to pay business mileage with your employer?

  • Deduct the distance home-office-home from any daily mileage claims

    Votes: 18 60.0%
  • Claim anything that is not a straight home-office-home journey

    Votes: 11 36.7%
  • Other

    Votes: 1 3.3%

  • Total voters
    30
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Swiss Toni

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When I applied for my job, I had to specifically ask about the rules on claiming mileage for work journeys due to the significant amount of travel required and the distance from home to my employers new office.

The rule was - any journey other than the standard home to office (or return) could be claimed.

So - if I drove to another location from home, then onto my office, I could claim the full distance. Likewise, if I drove from the Office, visiting clients and attending meetings, then drove home I could claim the full journey (assuming that from my last commitment to home was less than the alternative journey back to the office).

My employer wants to change the way they pay mileage.

Now they want me to deduct the distance home to office return from any mileage claim I make on any given day.

My firm do not pay me to insure my car for business use (although obviously I do!), nor do they pay me any retainer for me to have a car, the only requirement being that I have a driving licence and particular driving qualifications.

I do understand that the new proposal a fairly standard arrangements in many businesses, but this is a significant change to the terms under which I came to be employed.

In fact, it may make financial sense for me to rent a flat near my office and make the daily deductions minimal - actually moving my family is not practicable due to other circumstances.


Can anyone advise me re this unilateral change in the way mileage is paid to me?

I also make this thread a poll for anyone who uses their own car for business purposes, which best fits the method in place with your employer?

1. Deduct the distance home-office-home from any daily mileage claims

2. Claim anything that is not a straight home-office-home journey

3. Other

:doh:
 
I could be wrong (wait for it........) but as far as the taxman is concerned the distance claimed for mileage is the lesser of the distances from your home to the point of claim, or something similar. That would be a fair solution, which seems to come into category (3) above as it isn't the deduction of the whole distance. Having the backing of HMRC might give a bit of leverage

(.....waits to be shot down)
 
Private practice I always claimed for mileage from/to home depending on obviously if I was on way home or not.

When I worked for a county council I had to deduct the mileage to the office from my claim.

Most of my journeys were so long and hassled that there was no way they could accurately check my mileage anyway.
 
My previous employer operated on the basis that you deducted your usual round trip to and from the office when submitting a mileage claim.

I always thought this was fair, and so did the same with my current employer until a policy was published that says you must claim for the whole journey.

However if the journey starts from the office or ends at the office, then you don't claim for the home-office or office-home journies respectively.

I hope this helps.

PS If you don't get any allowances for the car, do you claim 40p per mile (up to 10,000 mile per annum) to cover wear/tear and other expenses?
 
According to HMRC...

Which journeys are ‘work journeys’?
Work journeys are those which you have to make in the course of doing your job. They include, for example, delivering goods or making calls to customers.

Any private journeys unrelated to work are not included. Nor are journeys to and from your usual place of work (commuting journeys), even if you call at a client’s on the way (unless the journey is significantly different from your usual commuting journey).


I live quite some distance from my Office - when accepting the job, I took into account that the mileage payments would cover a proportion of the journeys I make each week, now that they want to change the rules, I will be significantly out of pocket :(
Ironically, the difficulty my employer has faced for some time, is getting people with the right skills to come and work for them, usually due to them not being based in a centre of population...!
 
Our policy is quite straightforward.

1. Deduct the distance home-office-home from any daily mileage claims

But we tend to hire cars for anything other than minor trips.

As regards insurance it's a lowly can of worms. However some insurers (Direct Line family) don't charge for business use. And for many people the increase in premium for say 2000 miles extra a year is insignificant.

You will have to watch your tax situation. Last time I looked there was some sort of definition as to your regular place of work and you would potentially be liable to taxation on travel expenses reimbursed for journeys between home and work.
 
I could be wrong (wait for it........) but as far as the taxman is concerned the distance claimed for mileage is the lesser of the distances from your home to the point of claim, or something similar. That would be a fair solution, which seems to come into category (3) above as it isn't the deduction of the whole distance. Having the backing of HMRC might give a bit of leverage

(.....waits to be shot down)

Yep, you're wrong. :)

For tax purposes, the whole journey from home to destination is claimable and you can even call in at the office on the way to pick up papers etc and still claim the whole lot as long as the stop is incidental to the whole journey. Of course you only get the tax back, not the full cost, but it still could be a significant amount. You can also claim tax relief if the journey is a shorter distance than to your normal place of work.

See section 3.39 - http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/helpsheets/490.pdf

However, in a somewhat bizzare twist, HMRC employees (my wife was one) and many public and private employer company schemes, only pay based on the extra distance involved.
 
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We are told to claim the "whole" journey unless we go straight to work and back... so if I go to visit a client on my way to work, but then drive home after work, I claim the Home-Client-Work leg on mileage, but not the Work-Home leg...

Hope this makes sense...
M.
 
Yep, you're wrong. :)

For tax purposes, the whole journey from home to destination is claimable and you can even call in at the office on the way to pick up papers etc and still claim the whole lot as long as the stop is incidental to the whole journey. Of course you only get the tax back, not the full cost, but it still could be a significant amount. You can also claim tax relief if the journey is a shorter distance than to your normal place of work.

See section 3.39 - http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/helpsheets/490.pdf

However, in a somewhat bizzare twist, HMRC employees (my wife was one) and many public and private employer company schemes, only pay based on the extra distance involved.

Thanks - I was wrong but your last paragraph sort of says what I meant and that is what applies to us. I think I got the reclaimation of tax from HMRC for the journey and the claim for mileage payment from the employer mixed up. The leaflet makes intersting reading with some good examples. Cheers!
 
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We get paid for each mile we do for work over and above the commuting. If I visited someone on my way to work, I woudl claim for that as I consider that business miles because I was working. My employer agrees. However, Id be interested to know how much people get paid per mile.

We get just the basic 40p. Our employer will not budge on this. Their excuse is we would lose out because we would have to pay tax on the extra, but really its because they dont want the hassle of filling in the forms and they dont want to pay any more money.

Its been 40ppm for years, despite the cost of motoring going up a lot, so the argument continues.

Does anyone get more than 40ppm from their employer?
 
We get paid for each mile we do for work over and above the commuting. If I visited someone on my way to work, I woudl claim for that as I consider that business miles because I was working. My employer agrees. However, Id be interested to know how much people get paid per mile.

We get just the basic 40p. Our employer will not budge on this. Their excuse is we would lose out because we would have to pay tax on the extra, but really its because they dont want the hassle of filling in the forms and they dont want to pay any more money.

Its been 40ppm for years, despite the cost of motoring going up a lot, so the argument continues.

Does anyone get more than 40ppm from their employer?

Its another form of "fiscal creep" by the goverment....an attempt to get more in the way of tax from us....the 40p figure should have gone up each year in line with inflation but as it is not a headline matter, it hasn't.
 
Its been 40ppm for years, despite the cost of motoring going up a lot, so the argument continues.
40p for the first 10k then it's 25p per mile! I'm about to bust my 10k for this tax year :(
 
We get 38ppm for a car, and 24ppm for a motorbike... so even less than you!
You are entitled to 40p/mile up to 10k and 25p/mile thereafter so you can submit a claim to HMRC for the difference as a tax rebate.

Meanwhile as a contractor my "expenses" mostly come out of my own pocket so I'm paying myself 40p/mile from my pre-tax income. On the rare occasion that I'm entitled to re-charge expenses then I still get 40p/mile from the (current) client.
 
You are entitled to 40p/mile up to 10k and 25p/mile thereafter so you can submit a claim to HMRC for the difference as a tax rebate.

Meanwhile as a contractor my "expenses" mostly come out of my own pocket so I'm paying myself 40p/mile from my pre-tax income. On the rare occasion that I'm entitled to re-charge expenses then I still get 40p/mile from the (current) client.

Didn't know that! I guess I'll start keeping track of my miles more accurately!

M.
 
Not an option for all I know.

I won't accept an office and work from home, therefore every business journey can be claimed regardless.
 
40p for the first 10k then it's 25p per mile! I'm about to bust my 10k for this tax year :(

The Government has talked about abolishing the 40p rate and making it 25p across the board, although NHS workers particularly have kicked up a fuss about that. And no-one wants to upset nurses.

If you're an occasional user then there really isn't much incremental cost apart from fuel and the scheme isn't designed to give you a free car, especially not a Mercedes.

High mileage users tend to be on an allowance to cover fixed costs and then a much smaller amount (15p ish) to cover fuel etc. Of course they can claim the tax back up to 25/40p too. I work with one company where they abolished the fixed allowance and paid 40p/mile across the board and were then surpprised when employees mileages shot up.
 
I work with one company where they abolished the fixed allowance and paid 40p/mile across the board and were then surpprised when employees mileages shot up.

We used to see the same effect with fully expensed company cars. Personal mileage shoots up. That trip to Ullapool to see Aunt Molly doesn't seem so far. And the trip back the next weekend to pick up the £10 pullover that was left behind just doesn't seem disproportionate.

I don't jest.

And at the end of the day it's just basic economics at work.
 
At my current office there are a lot of "home workers" who travel a lot to visit suppliers, factories, retailers and customers. I was talking to a colleague recently and she remarked (quite proudly) that's she'd managed to juggle her "business trip" mileage such that all her personal mileage was covered too!

These are the same people that could save the company up to £12 per day in parking charges if they bought a paper for 20p (or indeed anything, but that's one of the cheapest things) and had the parking validated - but for whatever reason DON'T.
 
Problem:
When I applied for my job, I had to specifically ask about the rules on claiming mileage for work journeys due to the significant amount of travel required and the distance from home to my employers new office.

The rule was - any journey other than the standard home to office (or return) could be claimed.

So - if I drove to another location from home, then onto my office, I could claim the full distance. Likewise, if I drove from the Office, visiting clients and attending meetings, then drove home I could claim the full journey (assuming that from my last commitment to home was less than the alternative journey back to the office).

My employer wants to change the way they pay mileage.

Now they want me to deduct the distance home to office return from any mileage claim I make on any given day.

My firm do not pay me to insure my car for business use (although obviously I do!), nor do they pay me any retainer for me to have a car, the only requirement being that I have a driving licence and particular driving qualifications.

I do understand that the new proposal a fairly standard arrangements in many businesses, but this is a significant change to the terms under which I came to be employed.

In fact, it may make financial sense for me to rent a flat near my office and make the daily deductions minimal - actually moving my family is not practicable due to other circumstances.



Solution:
Your employer cannot change the terms of your contract unilaterally. However they can change them if it does not adversely affect the employee and in any case they must give notice of this, I think about 4 weeks. It is a question about whether this adversely affects you. It would be best to contact someone to get some legal advice so that you know where you stand. You could ring somewhere like the CAB, who may know something about this, although sometimes the advice they give can be limited. You could also try Quality Solicitors who offer a free first consultation; it will be easy just to ring them and see what they say.





 

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