EIM31205 - Employees using own vehicles for work: overview

Sections 229 to 236 ITEPA 2003

Sections 229 to 236 ITEPA 2003 contain the statutory system which deals with:

  • Mileage Allowance Payments (MAPs): payments to employees who carry out business travel in cars, vans, motor cycles or cycles (EIM31210 onwards)
  • Approved Mileage Allowance Payments (AMAPs): a statutory exemption from tax for payments (up to a certain level, the ‘approved amount for mileage allowance payments’, EIM31230 onwards) to employees who carry out business travel in their own cars, vans (including electric/hybrid cars and vans), motor cycles or cycles
  • Mileage Allowance Relief (MAR): a statutory deduction to which employees who carry out business travel in their own cars, vans (including electric/hybrid cars and vans), motor cycles or cycles but receive less in mileage allowance payments than the approved (exempt) amount are entitled (EIM31330 onwards)
  • Passenger Payments: an additional statutory exemption for payments (up to a certain level, the ‘approved amount for passenger payments’) to employees undertaking business travel in cars or vans (but not other kinds of vehicle) who carry as passengers fellow employees for whom the travel is also business travel, (EIM31400 onwards)

The equivalent scheme for National Insurance

There is an equivalent scheme for NICs but, while the tax and NICs schemes were aligned as much as possible, they differ in various ways. You should not assume that something that is true for one scheme is also true for the other.

Guidance on the NICs scheme begins at NIM05800.

Payments not affected by the AMAPs rules

The rules described at EIM31210 onwards do not apply to:

  • the tax treatment of private motoring costs met by an employer (see EIM00520)
  • the tax treatment of business mileage payments at a fuel only rate to employees driving company cars (see EIM25690)
  • payments etc that are not mileage allowance payments, EIM31215.

Dispensations

All MAPs are either exempt or chargeable, so dispensations are not available; see EIM31390.