Tax Tip: Commuting costs

The growth of home office and flexible working arrangements following Covid-19 and the various lockdowns have caused confusion to many employers when it comes to the reimbursement of travel expenses for ‘home to office’ travel. For example are employees working from home on a flexible or hybrid basis ‘genuine full-time home workers’ or are they simply employees who have – in simple terms – two permanent workplaces from a tax perspective?

While it is easy to understand why employees would like to assume they are home-based and that their home office is their only permanent workplace it is equally clear why HMRC would be keen to take a ‘strict approach’ to this area. After all if someone is genuinely a home-based worker with no other fixed alternative workplace (and many regional sales staff may be in this category for example) employers can:

• treat...