Fuel benefit tax vs AFR question

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Hi,

I currently pay £104 for use of private fuel a month and I'm trying to work out if its worth it to record all my private personal miles and reimburse the company every month for the miles used using the Advisory Fuel Rate for my car which at the moment is 0.10p.

My commute to work is 2.2 miles on the days I have to go into the office.

I'm a printer engineer so 50% of my days start with me attending a call and ending my day on the road and heading home...

The other 50% could be in the office all days doing various in house tasks and finishing my day at the office and heading home...

Question 1. If I'm on the road and I'm finished but lets say I'm 20 miles from home is that classed as business or private mileage?

Example 2, lets say I start my day and I have a job 2 miles from home but its not in the same direction as work is that business or private?

Question 2. HMRC says this,

"treating a journey from home to a temporary workplace as ordinary commuting where the extra distance is 10 miles or more each way"

So is that basically saying if my call first thing is not my usual commute 2.2 miles + 10 miles then that first call is classed as commute to work? So unless my first call is past 12.2 miles its private miles?

Question 3, HMRC mentions incidental journeys so if I go to work to collect a parcel then drive 40 miles somewhere then thats business miles so what if on route I pop into somewhere to grab a take away coffee at services is that also classed as business miles? I'm confused on dinner trips i.e. at dinner time I leave the office to go to the local super market is that private miles I guess or business?

I'm trying to understand in my circumstance what is actually private and business as its not very clear.

Thanks for any help.

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By Anonymous.
14th Jul 2020 00:30
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Replying to Anonymous.:
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By fishleg
14th Jul 2020 15:02

Anonymous. wrote:

Have a read of these:

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/safeguards-against-abuse-of-employee-travel-...

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/when-travel-qualifies-for-tax-relief-490-cha...

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/ordinary-commuting-and-private-travel-490-ch...

Unfortunately, there is no shortcut. If you want to maximise your tax/after tax position, you need to read and absorb.

Thanks I'll have a good read through those. It's very confusing as it's not clear cut what is private and businesses.. Even hmrc use terms like irrelevant journeys eg if I nip into the office on route as long as I don't stay for a length of time which is not stated then the whole journey is still classed as business miles and not part of a commute. They also give examples of visiting some where on your usual route to work other than the office it's classed as still commuting as it's along your usual route. In some of the examples they say if it's more than 10 miles from your usual route then it's business within that it's private. So confusing I think I'm gonna write to hmrc with all the typical scenarios for me and ask them what they would class it as with what I should be logging.

It's very hard to work out. I've heard you have to be able to prove what you've logged so are we basically saying if I use my company car to go get a sausage roll after work unlikely as that is, I've got to keep the receipts?

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