SE32116 - Travel expenses: 1998/99 and later years - the 24 month rule - transitional rules - requirement to return to a permanent workplace - example

In May 1998 an employee starts a new job as a trainee manager for a building society. When she starts her job her employer has not decided where she will be based. As part of her induction into the building society, for the first 2 months she is required to spend a few weeks working full-time at each of a number of different branches learning about the wide range of services the building society provides. After 2 months she is given a permanent posting to the branch in Swansea. A deduction is due for the full cost of her journeys between her home and the branches she visits in the first 2 months but not for the cost of journeys between her home and Swansea.

Swansea is her permanent workplace. She attends it regularly to perform the duties of her employment and that attendance is not to perform a task of limited duration or for a temporary purpose, see SE32065.

Each of the branches she works at during the first 2 months is capable of being a temporary workplace because her attendance is for a limited duration, see SE32075. The branches are not excluded from being temporary workplaces by the further rule explained in SE32080. Her attendance is in the course of a period of continuous work (she works there for 40% or more of her working time) but none of the periods exceed 24 months. So each of those branches is a temporary workplace.

This example shows travelling expenses that would not have been deductible under the Inland Revenue practice that applied to expenses incurred up to 1997/98, because the employee did not return to a normal place of work after each visit to a temporary place of work, see SE32385. The expenses are deductible under the new travel rule introduced by legislation that applies to expenses incurred in 1998/99 and later years.