Reclaiming Mileage From Client Co

[BillHicksRIP]

Hi. I'm working under my own Ltd and I've got 2 questions I'd be grateful if I could get an opinion on?

1. Customer wants me to visit a site 200 miles away and wants to reimburse me at £0.45p.m. There is no way for me to charge expenses back except to put it through my timesheet which allows for daily and hourly rate charges only. We agreed to put x amount of hours through as overtime to match the 400 x £0.45p.m. Is that ok from an IR35 perspective?

2. My personal car that I use for trips to the regular client site has gone to meet it's maker so I need to use a hire car for a week or two while I pick up another. Can this be expensed through the company with no BIK implications?

Thanks!

[TykeMerc]

Hi. I'm working under my own Ltd and I've got 2 questions I'd be grateful if I could get an opinion on?

1. Customer wants me to visit a site 200 miles away and wants to reimburse me at £0.45p.m. There is no way for me to charge expenses back except to put it through my timesheet which allows for daily and hourly rate charges only. We agreed to put x amount of hours through as overtime to match the 400 x £0.45p.m. Is that ok from an IR35 perspective?

2. My personal car that I use for trips to the regular client site has gone to meet it's maker so I need to use a hire car for a week or two while I pick up another. Can this be expensed through the company with no BIK implications?

Thanks!

1. So long as no-one lets the cat out of the bag (unlikely) then it should be an utter non issue.

2. I believe so as it can be argued it was required for business and site visits, but I'd be more comfortable if an accountant confirmed that.

[Clare@InTouch]

If the car is solely for business use with any private use being incidental then I'd agree there's no BIK, but as it's your personal car that has died I'm guessing you'll be using this new car for your private life too? In which case it would be a BIK. Have a read through here:

Beware pitfalls of hire car benefit-in-kind tax

[Wanderer]

1. Customer wants me to visit a site 200 miles away and wants to reimburse me at £0.45p.m. There is no way for me to charge expenses back except to put it through my timesheet which allows for daily and hourly rate charges only. We agreed to put x amount of hours through as overtime to match the 400 x £0.45p.m. Is that ok from an IR35 perspective?

I've done that before, just agree to charge out an extra few hours to cover expenses. It's good because there is no form filling, receipt producing wrangling with the client's HR and expenses system and agonising about what you can and can't claim. I can't see anything wrong with doing it, indeed it may be seen as an outside IR35 pointer as you (appear) to pay your own expenses and through careful management you could even profit out of the deal which is a pointer to self employment.

[BillHicksRIP]

Thanks for the very helpful replies. I'll hire the car midweek only and use the missus' at weekends. Hopefully that should remove any BIK worries, and I'll continue to bill for the mileage in the current manner.

Ta.

[Sockpuppet]

I've done that before, just agree to charge out an extra few hours to cover expenses. It's good because there is no form filling, receipt producing wrangling with the client's HR and expenses system and agonising about what you can and can't claim. I can't see anything wrong with doing it, indeed it may be seen as an outside IR35 pointer as you (appear) to pay your own expenses and through careful management you could even profit out of the deal which is a pointer to self employment.

Expenses and "seeming to pay your own" have no bearing on IR35. Conversley you're claiming hours you didn't work - overtime and not doing anything with those hours I would argue would be a worse IR35 argument.

No HMRC inspector in the land is going to expect a business to not flex cost. I have an agreemtn with client co that I work ~5 miles from home. All travelling and expenses are paid for as a seperate line item on the invoice. How do you think KPMG etc deal with clients asking for staff to be somewhere else?

[Wanderer]

Expenses and "seeming to pay your own" have no bearing on IR35.

A permie would expect to have their travel expenses paid if they were asked to go and work at a site 200 miles away from their normal workplace. So if a worker is not having their travel expenses paid then it's a pointer to self employment, surely?

Conversley you're claiming hours you didn't work - overtime and not doing anything with those hours I would argue would be a worse IR35 argument.

How would anyone other than the worker and the person who authorised the timesheets ever know?

[Sockpuppet]

A permie would expect to have their travel expenses paid if they were asked to go and work at a site 200 miles away from their normal workplace. So if a worker is not having their travel expenses paid then it's a pointer to self employment, surely?

A permie would expect that. Which is why you would submit a claim to your co. But for example I tell DHL they need to send a regional manager to Ireland to sort out a problem over there for client co. They are sure as heck going to send me the bill for his flight, otherwise why would they do it.

Saying that companies cannot charge expenses would severly limit the world of business and is in no way a pointer to IR35. Now using the same forms as permies could be seen as a pointer, in my case when cliecnt co ask that I workabroad I just include an extra line on next months invoice "Expenses Incurred" and the amount.

How would anyone other than the worker and the person who authorised the timesheets ever know?

So if you have an investigation and they ask why there is this extra saturday. Or one week has 50 hours not 40 and the permie HR says "well that's instead of expenses" - which looks a) bad and b) suspicious as heck