Postby darthblingbling » Sat Oct 20, 2018 10:55 am
I can see where you're coming from, but unfortunately you cannot claim business mileage if your employer pays for the fuel.
Remember, the 45p or 25p that you can claim if you were to pay for fuel is only taken off your taxable income, it's not a 45p or 25p refund from your tax.
Example, if you earned £45k per year and did 20,000 business miles, this would equate to £4,500 + £2,500 = £7,000 as an expense.
Income tax on £45,000 is £6,630
Income tax on £38,000 is £5,230
Therefore a lower tax liability of £1,400 if you were to instead pay for fuel and claim as business mileage.
Typical Ford Mondeo 2.0 Diesel apparently costs £2,980 per year to do 20,000 miles according to a fuel calculator I found on Google. Obvious caveat that this is not accurate and you may have a much more efficient car or are a much more efficient driver.
But as you will see you are likely better off with the employer paying for the fuel.
Alternatively the employer could pay you the 45p or 25p direct as opposed to paying for your fuel, but as you obviosuly do thousands of miles per year this is not cost effective for them and I doubt they'd go for it.