EIM32304 - Travel expenses: travel for necessary attendance: safeguards against abuse: journeys treated as ordinary commuting: example

An employee is a housing officer who normally drives to a permanent workplace 4½ miles from her home. One day she has to visit a client who lives 3 miles along her ordinary commuting route. After seeing the client she drives the remaining 1½ miles along her ordinary commuting route to her permanent workplace.

Her client’s home is a temporary workplace. The journey to that workplace is along the same route as her ordinary commuting journey and is substantially the same length. So it is substantially ordinary commuting, see EIM32300. No deduction is due for the cost of the journey.

This example can usefully be contrasted with example EIM32303. Although the two visits to clients are journeys of a similar length the outcome is different. The journeys have to be considered by reference to the ordinary commuting journey and cannot be considered in isolation.