Question regarding commuting

[Beatlesfan]

Hi all,

I've been offered a self employed sales position for a company I used to work for. However, as I have since moved house the new job will now be about 50 miles from my home. The company has a showroom but I will not be required to work there every day, probably 2 x mornings a week and occasionally meeting clients there. Outside of this my time will either be visiting clients, mostly within a 30 mile radius of the showroom (and the majority within 5 miles), working from my car or working from home.

So my question is, can I claim for the full journey from my house to the area of work, given that I am not working from the showroom for the majority of the time? Or would I only be able to claim the mileage from the companies showroom to each client?

I'm trying to work out whether this could work out financially so any advice would be really appreciated.

Thanks in advance

[robbob]

So my question is, can I claim for the full journey from my house to the area of work, given that I am not working from the showroom for the majority of the time? Or would I only be able to claim the mileage from the companies showroom to each client?

The answer here would almost certainly be no - the problem is that the workplace is not a temporary workplace (you are not there for limited duration) and the test with regard to frequency of travel to a "regular workplace" is detailed below - IMHO you clearly fail this test despite the fact there is some grey area leeway available in that regard. Note it is possible to have more than one permanent workplace at any one time so there is no ability to automaticlaly treat secondary location as temporary workplace.

A place at which an employee works is a permanent workplace if he or she attends it regularly for the performance of the duties of the employment.

definitions: permanent workplace: regular attendance

https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/employment-income-manual/eim32070

An employee regularly attends a particular workplace if the attendance is frequent, or it follows a pattern, or if the place is one at which the employee usually attends for all or almost all of the period for which he or she holds, or is likely to hold, that employment.
It is reasonable to class anything done repeatedly, with some sort of consistency, that is, frequent or habitual, or follows a pattern, as “regular” attendance. This means that fortnightly travel, for example, is capable of being regarded as “regular”. However, it is possible that the attendance might be for a temporary purpose. The longer the interval between each visit, the higher the possibility that the purpose of the visit is a temporary one, therefore each set of circumstances will need to be considered on its own merits.

Note in addition you could/would probably also fall foul of the specific depot /base rule
https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/employment-income-manual/eim32160

I think your only hope in that regard would be if there was no regular work patern there you had no base there had a base elsewhere (home) and your trips to that location where only done to perform some sort of temporary function.

https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/employment-income-manual/eim32065

Here is full chapter and verse - note reading one section in isolation can at times be slightly confusing as sometimes its an if / but / this / then / type flowchart (without there being any flowchart) you need to work through to get your answer.

Note you should be fine to claim for trips to clients directly from home and back again as long as that journey isnt substantially the same as your commute to one of your permanent workplaces.

[Beatlesfan]

That's great advice, thank you. I thought that would probably be the case but useful to have it confirmed.

Thanks again