We are members of the Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals. Earlier this year they posted this question on their website:
“If your employee has a meeting away from their normal workplace and they pass their workplace en route to the meeting, do they claim the mileage from home to the meeting or just from their workplace to the meeting?”
77% of respondents said they claim from the workplace to the meeting
21% of respondents said they claim the whole journey from home to the meeting
2% of respondents said you cannot claim at all
What would you have said? Who is correct?
The answer is – it depends. But the 2% were definitely wrong!
Your employee can claim mileage, but what they do on the way to the meeting determines whether they can claim from home to the meeting or just from their normal workplace to the meeting.
HMRC’s policy used to be that if the employee drove past their normal place of work they could only claim for the mileage from the workplace to the meeting. This policy has changed.
Here are 3 scenarios:
Scenario 1
The employee goes straight from home, doesn’t call in at the normal workplace and goes directly to the meeting.
They can claim mileage for the whole of the journey
Scenario 2
The employee pops into the normal workplace to collect some papers. They don’t do anything else and then go straight to the meeting.
They can claim mileage for the whole journey because what they did in the workplace is classed as ‘incidental’ by HMRC.
Scenario 3
The employee stops off at their normal workplace on the way to the meeting and has a short meeting with a colleague on a project.
They can only claim the mileage for the journey from the normal workplace to the meeting because what they did in the office is classed as ‘substantive’ by HMRC.
This survey resulted in 956 responses. One of which flagged up that the HMRC’s own EMI (Employment Income Manual) didn’t correspond to the guidance in the 490 Employee Travel – tax and NICs guide. The CIPP has been assured that HMRC will look into this conflicting advice!
All Payrolls is a premier outsourced payroll solution provider. We are based in Birmingham and we are experts in all matters concerning payroll. So if you are ever in doubt, please contact us we will be delighted to help.