Travel not allowed

The taxpayer a sole trader sold food at various locations but mainly at a town market place. He kept his trailer stock and other items for the business at a unit four miles from his home.

For four days a week - those when he was not trading - he went to the unit to carry out maintenance on his equipment.

HMRC refused the taxpayer’s claim for motor expenses saying that the only allowable mileage was between his home and a cash and carry and between his home and the unit on non-trading days.

The mileage between his home and the market place was not business mileage because he was travelling to his place of business.

The First-tier Tribunal after examining the evidence concluded that the market place was the taxpayer’s base of operations and main place of trading. The fact that...