EIM32308 - Travel expenses: travel for necessary attendance: safeguards against abuse: journeys treated as ordinary commuting: example

An employee is a clerk in an insurance company. She works flexi-time and normally drives to the office that is her permanent workplace. The route she takes depends on what time she leaves the house. If she leaves before 8am she drives 8 miles along the A road. If she leaves later she drives 10 miles along the B road and drops her daughter off at school on the way. One day she has an early morning meeting with clients at their office which is 9 miles along the B road from her home. The early start means she cannot take her daughter to school.

The client’s office is a temporary workplace. The employee’s journey from home to the client’s office is along the same route as one of her ordinary commuting journeys and is substantially the same length. It is therefore substantially ordinary commuting, see EIM32300. No deduction is due for the cost of the journey.

The fact that she has more than one commuting journey and that the journey to the client’s office does not follow the route that she would take at that time is irrelevant. The journey is substantially an ordinary commuting journey.