Where an employee is sent away from their permanent workplace for several months, the new workplace will still be regarded as a temporary workplace if the posting is either:
The employee may still retain his permanent workplace.
Edward works in New Brighton. His employer sends him to Wrexham for 1.5 days a week, for a period of 28 months.
Edward will be entitled to relief. Any posting over 24 months will still qualify provided that the 40% rule is not breached.
Some employees do not have a normal place of work, but instead work at a succession of different sites for several days, weeks or months at a time. Examples of site-based employees include construction workers, safety inspectors, computer consultants and relief workers. A site-based employee’s travel and subsistence can be reimbursed tax free if the period spent at the site is expected to be, and actually is, less than 24 months.
There are anti-avoidance provisions to ensure that the employment is genuinely site-based, if relief is to be given. For example, temporary appointments may be excluded from relief where duties are performed at that workplace for all or almost all of that period of employment. This is aimed particularly at preventing manipulation of the 24 month limit through recurring temporary appointments.
Some employees work at home occasionally or even regularly. This does not necessarily mean that their home can be regarded as a place of work. For this to be the case, there must be an objective requirement for the work to be performed at home rather than elsewhere.
This may mean that another place becomes the permanent workplace: for example, an office to which the employee ‘regularly reports’. Therefore the cost of commuting between home and the office would not be an allowable expense. However, trips between home and temporary workplaces would be allowed.
If there is no permanent workplace then the employee is treated as a site-based employee. Thus all costs would be allowed, including the occasional trip to the employer’s office.
The home may still be treated as a workplace under the objective test above. If so, trips between home and any other workplace in respect of the same employment will be allowable.