EIM10210 - Employment income: travelling and subsistence payments: taxis and other journeys home from work paid for or provided by an employer

Section 248 ITEPA 2003

Section 248 ITEPA 2003 exempts from tax the cost of some journeys home from work paid for or provided by an employer in particular circumstances:

  • where the employee is required to work late, or
  • when an employee’s normal car sharing arrangements are unavailable.

The exemption in section 248 cannot apply to any more than 60 journeys in a tax year. This is a single limit that applies to late night journeys and failure of car sharing arrangements together.

See EIM10220 for what to do if the number of journeys that would otherwise meet the terms of the exemption exceeds 60.

Late night journeys (Section 248(2))

The exemption for late night journeys paid for or provided by the employer applies if all the following conditions are met:

  • the journey occurs because the employee is required to work later than usual, and until at least 9pm, and
  • late working is irregular and
  • by the time the employee finishes work, public transport is:
  1. either unavailable for the journey home, or
  2. it is unreasonable to expect the employee to use it and
  • the transport paid for or provided by the employer is by taxi or similar private road transport.

For more information concerning the exemption for late night taxis see EIM21831.

Failure of car sharing arrangements (Section 248(3))

The exemption for journeys paid for or provided by the employer applies if the following conditions are met:

  • the employee regularly travels to work in a shared car with one or more employees of the same employer and
  • due to unforeseen circumstances the car sharing arrangement is unavailable.

Circumstances are unforeseen only if the car sharing arrangements fail after the employees concerned arrive at work. For instance, if the car breaks down at work so it is not capable of transporting the employees home, or if the car driver is called home or to another location during the working day, leaving the employees who share the car without their transport home. On the other hand, if it is apparent before the employees leave home for work that the normal car sharing arrangements are not available for a day, the unavailability can be foreseen and alternative arrangements may be made to travel to work. See EIM10220 for what to do if the terms of the exemption are not met.

For the exemption from tax of journeys on works buses see EIM21850 and for subsidised journeys on public buses see EIM21855.