Despite my line of work, I'm fairly naive when it comes to tax related questions. Figured I'd ask here on the off chance that some may have an idea of what's going on.

1. I get paid for mileage. This isn't a business allowance - there's no choice between company car and mileage, for example. I can claim only for days that I do home visits, though the mileage is counted from home -> surgery -> home visit -> surgery -> home. Anyway, this has resulted in me being paid about £500 for the mileage claim over three months. It's a gross figure - the PCT pays the practice, and the practice pays me. Do I need to declare it and pay tax on it? A fellow colleague says no, but I'm a bit unsure.

2. Today, I received a random letter from HMRC. I'm apparently due income tax repayment of £1500. The Tax year is for 2009-2010. What's going on? Apparently, the calculations will be sent separately. Just seems random - I've never had this before.

Any explanations should ideally be in a "dummy's guide" type format. I'm a doctor, not a frikkin' accountant!

I can answer the first one. Home visits are business mileage so it depends on your rate and what car you drive. There are set maximum limits, 40ppm for petrol cars.

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/rates/travel.htm

If you're paid more than that, you're taxed on the excess.

I cannot recall the exact mileage I claimed but it was under 1000 miles.

1. You can't claim for the mileage from your home to your place of work. You can claim for miles driven for business purposes e.g. to see patients but your commute is a personal journey and is not claimable.

2. HMRC are currently re-reconciling years for certain taxpayers where information was missing but has been supplied or found, the missing information usually relates to P11Ds (taxable expenses) and P14 (end of year pay and tax) information and is usually missing for one or two years from tax years 2005/2006 to 2009/2010. This is usually because the employer has failed to supply the information either at all or on time.

Um yes I can claim for journey from home to work - it's on the claim form! The only times I can make claims for home to work is if I do a home visit on that day. I think it's to do with the fact that our training occurs over a wide area, so I could be at one practice for six months and then somewhere else. Not sure. Doing the visits is actually negligible when compared to my daily commute which is 13 miles each way. The visits are generally 1-2 miles return, but none more than 4 miles return.

Have a look at the west midlands deanery website if you want verification - should be a copy of the form too.

My question is whether I have to declare this and pay tax.

With respect to the second question, I guess it's the hospitals who have buggered up as that seems to be the dates it alludes to.

So I followed my own advice above and had a look at the deanery website - it confirms that JW009 was correct. I pay national insurance on anything above 45p per mile. I have the cash but no idea on how much I claimed, and the practice manager will be away tomorrow! Thankfully he's clever enough to photocopy everything and make backups too.

You generally cannot claim for expenses to and from work. However any expenses on outcalls can be fully covered, but only from work to outcall. If you are paid for travel to and from home you probably should report it as it would be treated as benefits in kind. As a self employed person working from home you would be entitled to all costs on business but not personal costs. If you have two cars which are solely for one or the other then you could claim all the costs for one of the cars, though nothing for the other.

Personally in your position I would run everything through either an Tax Institute (ATI) member or certified accountant (cheaper than chartered and just as good) If you do your own books you can probably get it all sorted relatively cheaply. You can also ring the HMRC, they are very helpful and if you are honest with them they have never been any trouble, plus its free.

+1 That isn't allowed. If you claim home to surgery (or home to patient, without deducting the surgery), then you have to pay tax on that part, AFAIK. Although if it is for days when you would not normally work (drive to the surgery), then you can claim it.

http://www.westmidlandsdeanery.nhs.uk/G ... Qs.aspx#q3

^^^ That's the link. Remember, I'm a trainee, not self-employed. I don't get a car allowance or anything like that. This is not the same as me being employed by the practice and claiming business mileage, which would cover only from the pratice onwards.

Anyway, the advice for contacting HMRC is a good one.

Spoke to HMRC (though I swear it was a YTS that I was speaking to). Basically, as long as it's 45p per mile, I'm fine. Any more and I pay tax on the portion above 45p. Anything less and I get tax relief on the difference. He didn't know much about the home to work thing but given that I told him what I was told, it was fine .

A bit more digging and it's a prearranged agreement because of my trainee status. Had I been employed directly by the practice as a salaried GP, or worked as a partner, I don't get this benefit.

Getting yourself to work is expected. You generally have a home-base office, which you have to deduct from each claimed journey (unless you start from this base). If you stay at a particular place for more than 18 months, it automatically becomes your base office.

I had that problem regularly, working for Cap Gemini. My local office was about 5 miles away, but, because I was there for about a month every 5 years, I had real problems on long term assignments and always tried to get myself moved between projects at the 18 month mark, so that my base remained the local one, not the one 100 miles away, that I travelled to every day...

Agreed - except it's not like I can use public transport.

I could, in theory, catch a bus to the city centre and then a train out to the practice. The practice is practically next to the train station. So I could get to/from work without a car. So what happens if it turns out that I need to do a home visit (or several) and I have no practical means of getting there? I would have to resort to using a taxi which would become far more expensive, given that once I'm at a visit, I have no idea how long I'm going to be there. Logistically it doesn't work.

Visits can be requested up until the end of morning surgery (unless emergency). So I could turn up and do several visits (typically two), but I could equally have no visits - if, for example, there are two visits requested and both are complicated, requiring a senior GP.

Given that it's a requirement of me to help with home visits, I would need a car. But given that I don't know whether I have any to do that day becomes difficult.

Which is why I think we have this "quirk" of an allowance - I'm allowed to claim only the days I've done home visits.

It makes no difference, whether you can walk to the office, catch a bus or drive a car, those are the costs you have to take into account, when you take the job.

If you are working on a "customer" site, then you can claim the difference between your normal place of work and the "customer" site - if the customer site is nearer to home, you can't claim.

Then you have the 18 month / 2 year rule (I think it was the former), that if you work on the same customer site for 18 months, it becomes your permanent base and you can't claim expenses for travelling there any more.

If you are based out of a central deployment office, where they send you for short periods to other offices, then you can claim the mileage to those offices, less the distance you would normally travel to the base office (and there is a set fee. If the company allow you to claim 100% of the miles travelled, without deducting the "normal travel", then you can expect the tax man to want his cut of those extra miles.

Edit: Removed the bit about different engine sizes, that only applies for company cars.


And what would happen, if you didn't own a car, or didn't have a driving licence?

The mileage allowance, as set by the HMG/the tax office, is to compensate you only for the additional costs over and above those that you would incur when travelling to your normal place of work. Whether you would normally travel by foot, bike, bus or train is irrelevant, for tax purposes, the Tax Office lets you have any miles over and above those that you would normally incur, travelling to your main office.

It isn't the tax offices problem, how you get to work or what you agree with your employer. If you go outside the regulations and claim 100% of the mileage, that extra is taxable.


That sounds a bit funny. But you have to separate what the authority will allow you to claim and what is allowed under the tax law. The difference, if positive, is taxable.

As somebody who used to do around 40,000 miles a year, working from customer sites, it was something I paid very special attention to. Especially when the brought the 18 month rule in, during the mid 90s. That was something that hadn't bothered us (I'd spent over 2 years working in Newport at the time), so we had to quickly adjust to the new rule and I had to switch offices quickly and work there for 6 months, before going back to the old contract.

As Big_D says, any personal mileage is not claimable. It doesn't really matter what your employer allows you to claim, HMRC won't be interested.

If your employer is paying you mileage (or gives you a car, fuel card etc) for personal use, such as commuting, then that's a taxable benefit, as such your employer should be submitting a P11D and you should be paying tax on that benefit (it's usually coded out of your personal allowance).

You can't, as a rule, claim tax relief for personal mileage, which includes commuting - any AO at HMRC worth their salt would tell you the same.

Having read some of the posts, there's evidently some extra clarification required.


I didn't select to work at the practice. About two years ago, I applied for specialty training in GP. I passed the exams, passed the assessments/interview and then got a place onto the training scheme. I was then (after a few weeks), given the rotations I'd be working over the next three years. That meant the various jobs I'd be working over the next three years, either in hospital or general practice. I'd already accepted the offer and you don't know what you're getting until you get it! If I pulled out, I would be referred to the GMC!


My bases change every 4-6 months. When I was working in the hospital, the base was the main trust site. When I moved to other hospitals (in the same trust), the trust HQ was my base but that was for a max of 18 months. I then moved to my first GP surgery and was there for 6 months and am at my current one for 12 months.


You don't get on to the training scheme - it's in the requirements of application that you must have a valid driving license and must be able to provide and use your own vehicle when required.


Which is why I've been trying to find out what I need to do.

But when I spoke to HMRC, they were happy with the entire home-to-work-and-back thing as it is a prearranged agreement (I think between the royal college and hmrc).


But what I gather is that my situation is the exception to the rule.

On top of this, the employer is the GP surgery but I'm paid the mileage by the Primary Care Trust.