Company car, Business miles or Private miles?
Discussion
Hoping for some advice on a potential issue I have.
A bit of a background; my job is regional based covering the North of England and Scotland. Head Office is not located in my regional catchment area.
Any admin. work I do is done from my home, or in the car while I am out and about.
Round trip to Head Office is approx. 300 miles and I visit H/O once of twice a month for Sales Meetings or Customer visits.
I have a company car which I document and pay for my private miles in full.
I do little private miles in it (we have more interesting cars at home for weekend use).
Company have now declared that following clarification from HMRC all journeys into H/O are private miles and are now chargeable.
Company have been unable to provide me this clarification as yet.
The exact wording of my employment contract is "You are required to work at the company's premises at [deleted for the purpose of the post] and anywhere else the company may reasonably require. In the case of sales team members, your place of work will be wherever the company has work to be carried out"
My understanding of the above is, sales team members are not H/O based.
If HMRC now see this as my commute, surely they will look to class any daily journey by me up to 300 miles as private miles?
Is this our Finance person misunderstanding rules by HMRC, or am I now exposed to additional travel costs.
Thanks in advance.
A bit of a background; my job is regional based covering the North of England and Scotland. Head Office is not located in my regional catchment area.
Any admin. work I do is done from my home, or in the car while I am out and about.
Round trip to Head Office is approx. 300 miles and I visit H/O once of twice a month for Sales Meetings or Customer visits.
I have a company car which I document and pay for my private miles in full.
I do little private miles in it (we have more interesting cars at home for weekend use).
Company have now declared that following clarification from HMRC all journeys into H/O are private miles and are now chargeable.
Company have been unable to provide me this clarification as yet.
The exact wording of my employment contract is "You are required to work at the company's premises at [deleted for the purpose of the post] and anywhere else the company may reasonably require. In the case of sales team members, your place of work will be wherever the company has work to be carried out"
My understanding of the above is, sales team members are not H/O based.
If HMRC now see this as my commute, surely they will look to class any daily journey by me up to 300 miles as private miles?
Is this our Finance person misunderstanding rules by HMRC, or am I now exposed to additional travel costs.
Thanks in advance.
Im sure it doesn't work this way but all other business mileage you do should now be calculated from your primary place of employment and such should have 300miles added to every journey. lol
Anyway the HMRC only care about tax, their rules aren't rules on when and when not your company can give you money. They are rules on how they are to be taxed. The 300miles might be classed as too a permanent place of work and the payment should be dealt with differently for tax purposes, that doesn't mean the company cant reimburse you the cost. It will save the company money in the long run you living closer to your 'area'.
Ive been looking at this recently as im moving further away from were I work and changing my employment location, but this is likely to give me 2 permanent places of employment. Neither of which I can claim expenses under my companies rules for traveling too. But if I move 100miles north that will knock off 100miles from any site I travel too in the north...
Anyway the HMRC only care about tax, their rules aren't rules on when and when not your company can give you money. They are rules on how they are to be taxed. The 300miles might be classed as too a permanent place of work and the payment should be dealt with differently for tax purposes, that doesn't mean the company cant reimburse you the cost. It will save the company money in the long run you living closer to your 'area'.
Ive been looking at this recently as im moving further away from were I work and changing my employment location, but this is likely to give me 2 permanent places of employment. Neither of which I can claim expenses under my companies rules for traveling too. But if I move 100miles north that will knock off 100miles from any site I travel too in the north...
Edited by Foliage on Friday 1st September 11:50
Notwen said:
Hoping for some advice on a potential issue I have.
A bit of a background; my job is regional based covering the North of England and Scotland. Head Office is not located in my regional catchment area.
Any admin. work I do is done from my home, or in the car while I am out and about.
Round trip to Head Office is approx. 300 miles and I visit H/O once of twice a month for Sales Meetings or Customer visits.
I have a company car which I document and pay for my private miles in full.
I do little private miles in it (we have more interesting cars at home for weekend use).
Company have now declared that following clarification from HMRC all journeys into H/O are private miles and are now chargeable.
Company have been unable to provide me this clarification as yet.
The exact wording of my employment contract is "You are required to work at the company's premises at [deleted for the purpose of the post] and anywhere else the company may reasonably require. In the case of sales team members, your place of work will be wherever the company has work to be carried out"
My understanding of the above is, sales team members are not H/O based.
If HMRC now see this as my commute, surely they will look to class any daily journey by me up to 300 miles as private miles?
Is this our Finance person misunderstanding rules by HMRC, or am I now exposed to additional travel costs.
Thanks in advance.
Do you need to carry samples with you when travelling to the head office?A bit of a background; my job is regional based covering the North of England and Scotland. Head Office is not located in my regional catchment area.
Any admin. work I do is done from my home, or in the car while I am out and about.
Round trip to Head Office is approx. 300 miles and I visit H/O once of twice a month for Sales Meetings or Customer visits.
I have a company car which I document and pay for my private miles in full.
I do little private miles in it (we have more interesting cars at home for weekend use).
Company have now declared that following clarification from HMRC all journeys into H/O are private miles and are now chargeable.
Company have been unable to provide me this clarification as yet.
The exact wording of my employment contract is "You are required to work at the company's premises at [deleted for the purpose of the post] and anywhere else the company may reasonably require. In the case of sales team members, your place of work will be wherever the company has work to be carried out"
My understanding of the above is, sales team members are not H/O based.
If HMRC now see this as my commute, surely they will look to class any daily journey by me up to 300 miles as private miles?
Is this our Finance person misunderstanding rules by HMRC, or am I now exposed to additional travel costs.
Thanks in advance.
As a compromise solution suggest that you travel by train to head office
Foliage said:
Anyway the HMRC only care about tax, their rules aren't rules on when and when not your company can give you money. They are rules on how they are to be taxed.
Not true. They do care when or when not a company pays you money, otherwise how do they know what should be taxed 
Anyway, back to the OP. Unless you can be officially classed by your employer as "working from home", the HO will be classed as your permanent workplace and so your commute will be private mileage.
I think your company finance person has interpreted the rules regarding geographical areas (when an employee has duties which are defined in a particular geographical area, that whole area is treated as their permanent workplace if there is no single site that can be classed permanent, and the employee attends that area regularly) and from this has defined all your journey's within your regional catchment area are to permanent workplaces, and so are private mileage.
My own interpretation (and please note I am not 100% sure as I don't really deal with this sort of stuff on a regular basis) is that this would apply to a role like a regional supervisor, who oversees a number of company sites within an area. In your case (which I assume is sales) then you would not be travelling to the same places each time, in which case you wouldn't define it as a permanent workplace and so it could be classed business mileage. Should you stop at a customer on the way to HO then any additional mileage over the usual 300 could also be classed as business.
Speak to someone at the company and ask them to clarify. If they dig their heels in then try to get your status changed so you are officially classed as working from home. Added bonus is that any trips for work, including to HO, would then be business.
I'm home based and can claim to the office as long as i'm not making a pattern of certain days.
If "we" (home based employees) attend any of our national offices / sites on a regular basis they are classed as permanent so are classed as private, apparently we can have multiple permanent locations, who knew!
If "we" (home based employees) attend any of our national offices / sites on a regular basis they are classed as permanent so are classed as private, apparently we can have multiple permanent locations, who knew!
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