Travel expenses - to claim or not to claim?

The rules state that travel between home and place of work are private and therefore disallowed.  However, what is classed as business travel, if you are self-employed with more than one place of work?

When claiming for business travel expenses, it is important to ensure that you do not claim for travel that is actually private.  If your work includes visiting business clients and you only have one place of work, then the rules are clear; travel from home to work – no claim; travel from work to client premises – claim, but it is not always this straightforward.

Where there is more than one business base, travel between premises put the person in a position to undertake their work, rather than actually carrying out their business, and may be disallowed.

A good example of this is a recent tribunal, which looked at the case of a GP with multiple places of business.  He works for himself from home and from two private hospitals whilst also being employed by the NHS.  The nature of the doctor’s work means that in any one week he could be working from more than one of the locations even within the same day.

The tribunal decided that travel between his home and the private hospitals had a mixed purpose as therefore not classed as business travel.  Travel between the two private hospitals and the NHS hospitals were also disallowed as they were not incurred in carrying out his business, but instead put him in a position to carry out his business.

When the Doctor was working for the NHS, his journey from home to the NHS hospital was classed as his ordinary commute to work. This also included his journeys from the NHS hospital to the Private hospitals.

A claim for business travel was allowed when the Doctor travelled from his home or hospitals to a patient’s home, or the travel between the two private hospitals.

Everybody’s circumstances are different and in some cases can be quite complex, should you wish to discuss your options in regard to business mileage, please contact Andrew Grant, who would be more than happy to talk to you.