EIM32303 | Travel expenses: travel for necessary attendance: safeguards against abuse: journeys treated as ordinary commuting: example

An employee is a production manager. He normally drives to a permanent workplace 18 miles from his home. One day he has to visit a client to discuss in detail the specifications for a new product. The client’s office is 3 miles along his ordinary commuting route. After he has seen the client he drives the remaining 15 miles along his ordinary commuting route to his permanent workplace.

The client’s office is a temporary workplace. The 3-mile journey to that workplace is on the same route as the employee’s ordinary commuting journey but it is much shorter. So it is not substantially ordinary commuting, see EIM32300. The cost of the remaining 15-mile journey from the client’s office to the employee’s permanent workplace is also deductible as he is travelling between 2 workplaces, see EIM32360. The employee is entitled to mileage allowance relief for the full 18-mile journey, see EIM31330.

This example can usefully be contrasted with example EIM32304.