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Tax Refunds for Tradesmen and Construction Workers paid under PAYE

Tradesmen and construction workers working under PAYE can claim tax relief for the costs they incur in travelling to temporary workplaces.

A workplace could be regarded a temporary workplace if an employee goes to work there for a period of up to 24 months .. but..but.. there are many rules and regulations around what exactly constitutes a temporary workplace. The big advantage of having your place of work treated as a temporary workplace is that it enables you to claim for your travel expenses between your home and your workplace.

These costs can be for using their own vehicle to travel to their workplace or when travelling by public transport.

Tax Refund for Mileage when using your Car for Work Purposes

It is possible to reclaim tax relief for using your own car for work purposes also known as business mileage.

HMRC do not recognise normal commuting to one permanent place of employment as being business mileage and therefore is not allowable but travelling to temporary workplaces generally is allowable.

Therefore if you spend less than 24 months working at a particular site, the travelling costs you incur in attending that site are generally allowable to claim a tax refund on.

The current mileage rates allowed by HMRC are 45p per mile for the first 10,000 miles and 25p per mile thereafter. A mileage claim is still possible if your employer pays you a mileage allowance which is not the maximum HMRC allowed mileage rate of 45p per mile and also when any mileage paid by an employer is taxed.

A claim can potentially be made for the last four tax years starting currently from the 2008-2009 tax year. However, after 5th April 2013, we can only go back to the 2009-2010 tax year.

HMRC do require records to be kept of the locations visited with dates and the mileage incurred.

If you have not kept any records, all is not lost. But to help reconstruct your records, you should gather up all the information you can from diaries, time sheets, petrol receipts, all of which can help you put together a record of the sites or places you were working. Also, you could go back to your employers who should be able to provide you with your site history.

If you have not kept any records or unable to get any, please contact us regardless as we are confident we can help you get the information required.

The tax refunds available could be quite substantial, if you travelled to temporary workplaces over the past four years and you average work journeys came to say 200 miles per week, then your tax refund would be in the order of £3,000 and that's after our reasonable fees.

Tax Refund for use of Public Transport for Work Purposes

It is also possible to claim tax relief for using public transport when travelling to temporary workplaces.

HMRC do not allow the cost of normal commuting to one permanent place of employment but travelling to temporary workplaces generally is allowable.

Therefore if you spend less than 24 months working at a particular site, the travelling costs you incur in attending that site are generally allowable to claim a tax refund on.

A claim can potentially be made for the last four tax years starting currently from the 2008-2009 tax year. However, after 5th April 2013, we can only go back to the 2009-2010 tax year.

HMRC do require records to be kept of the locations visited with dates and copies of the travel tickets.

If you have not kept any records, all is not lost. But to help reconstruct your records, you should gather up all the information you can from diaries, time sheets, all of which can help you put together a record of the sites or places you were working. Also, you could go back to your employers who should be able to provide you with your site history.

If you have not kept any records or unable to get any, please contact us regardless as we are confident we can help you get the information required.

The tax refunds available could be quite attractive, if you travelled to temporary workplaces over the past four years and you average travel costs were £60 per week, then your tax refund would be in the order of £2,000 and that's after our reasonable fees.

Tax Refund for other Work Related Expenses

In conjunction with submitting a claim for travel costs, we would also look at other work costs which could be allowable such as purchases of tools and specialist clothing, flat rate expenses and accommodation and subsistence costs at temporary workplaces

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