Hi everyone - I have a self employed hairdresser who works at a specific salon 5 days per week - he has to travel by train to and from this salon - im presuming this is NOT an allowable expense as it is his regular place of work.
If he then goes to a clients home and he has to travel from his home to theirs but this is not a regular occurrence then this can be an allowable travel expense?
Can that be clarified by someone please, as I may be wrong. My understanding is that it is your business place where the travel can be claimed from. Say the customer lives 3 miles away from the salon, but the owners home is 30 miles away. Is it acceptable for the owner to claim 33 miles to the customers home, rather than 3 miles?
You could keep your accounting records are home and therefore your home would be a place of business.
For claiming you need to claim reasonably. So if the salon was 10 miles north of home and the personal appointment was 5 miles south of home and you went from home to the personal appointment first thing then you would claim 10 miles (5 each way) not 30 miles (15 each way). If however the personal appointment was 15 miles north of home and you just went to the personal appointment and not the salon on that day then it would be reasonable to claim 30 miles (15 each way) from home to personal appointment.
I thought. HMRC viewed your place of work as the place you spent the majority or a large proportion of your time rather than where you kept the records. I have a customer whose registered address is his home so he wants to use this as his place of work respite the fact he spends most of his time in his showroom some 20 miles away, so he wants to claim almost 100% of his mileage.
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Joanne
Winner of Bookkeeper of the Year 2015, 2016 & 2017
Thoughts are my own/not to be regarded as official advice,which should be sought from a suitably qualified Accountant.
You should check out answers with reference to the legal position
This has to be one of the most frequently asked questions!
If someone - anyone - has a regular place of work, be it a local factory, an office in a major city or a shed in the back garden, then no travel claim is allowed between the place they sleep and the place they work. Travel claims are for 'unusual' or 'non-regular' journeys.
So the office worker who is usually based at office A (say Croydon) cannot claim any mileage/travel allowance for that journey. BUT, if they have to travel to office B umpty ump miles away (say Reigate), for any reason, the mileage or travel costs for that journey are admissible.
Your self-employed Hairdresser, torracj, generally works from a specific salon, as that is his usual place of work no travel claim can be entertained for that specific journey. However, if he should go to a different location either before, after or on a non-work day - perhaps he is doing styling for a wedding say - then the additional travel cost, over and above his usual work pattern can be claimed. That would include extra costs incurred from the salon to the client and then home, from home to the client and then home again and from home to the client and then to the salon.
Note it is the extra cost that can be claimed - so if he has a travel card that is purchased to get to the regular place of work that also covers, at no extra cost, the trip to the client there is no claim!
Travel from your home to the Salon (not allowed) Travel from your home to a client (allowed)
-- Edited by Energise Accounting on Friday 14th of November 2014 02:15:45 PM
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Accounts,Book-keeping,Tax,Business Finance,Invoice Discounting and Factoring we also specialise in public house Accounting and Finance So if you need our help please give us a call.
Hi Mike
I read the concensus here, along with the HMRC manual to read:-
Travel from your home to the Salon - not allowed
Travel from your home to a client - not allowed (as not wholly and exclusively) although any additional travel is so a % is allowed.
Or have I missed the point?
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Joanne
Winner of Bookkeeper of the Year 2015, 2016 & 2017
Thoughts are my own/not to be regarded as official advice,which should be sought from a suitably qualified Accountant.
You should check out answers with reference to the legal position
But in this case, the shop is the base not the home. The hairdresser wouldn't be claiming travel between home and base, for 5 days a week.
A totally freelance hairdresser could claim home to client. This person seems to have extra journeys outside of the normal workplace. So, you get home from work and you go back out to a client... would it not be fair to have that mileage? This self employed person could say home was the base for all non shop operations? They are separate contracts. They aren't a permanent place of work.
Surely its part of the cost if a freelance hairdresser. If I deliver payslips then that is part of the expense of the job the same as if I posted them so on that basis you should be able to claim the journeys.
It is quite simple as Michelle points out you are not allowed to claim travel to and from your normal place of work, in this case (the salon). however, when visiting a client at their home this is allowed as it is outside the normal workplace. HMRC are very clear on this I don't understand the confusion at all.
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Accounts,Book-keeping,Tax,Business Finance,Invoice Discounting and Factoring we also specialise in public house Accounting and Finance So if you need our help please give us a call.
It all boils down to 'regular place of work'. Because torracj's client has a regular place of work they are deemed employed (self-employed) at the one set location - travel to and from that location cannot be claimed. It doesn't matter if they are on PAYE, self-employed or a high flying company director of a multi-million international company. The rule is the same. Regular place of work = no claimable travel. If it was any other way every PAYE employee would be claiming travel allowance and causing a major panic in every board room across the country!
The question is, is non-regular or unusual travel claimable? I.E. if there are extra cost incurred for the hairdresser to visit a different location in which to ply his trade, are those costs claimable. To which the answer is Yes, they are.
