Employees can claim a fixed amount for every mile of business travel using their own motorcycle or car. The amount per mile allowance covers:
- The cost of fuel
- A contribution towards tyre wear, service costs, car HP payments, insurance, etc.
So if you're claiming mileage you can't make a claim for petrol, new tyres, washer fluid or a nice new body kit.
For a car the fixed mileage allowances are 45p per mile for the first 10,000 business miles in a tax year (6th April - 5th April) and 25p for the rest.
Soletraders and partnerships are slightly different because they have the choice of claiming a proportion of their overall motor costs.
Business travel might be:-
- Working away from your normal workplace, temporarily;
- Going to meetings or appointments off-site;
- Travelling to business conferences or training centres.
You can't claim expenses for travelling to and from your normal place of work – this is just the normal cost of commuting. It is important to establish where your business is being run from.
You must: Remember the 24 month rule applies to any claims. Keep a log of all mileage travelled on business. One way to do this might be to keep a notebook in your car and every time you travel somewhere on business, note; Date, Journey Purpose, start and Destination Postcodes, Journey Start Mileage, Journey End mileage. If you forget to note the actual miles for a journey, use the AA route finder (www.theaa.com) to calculate the journey length between postcodes and use this figure.
