Taxing Train Tickets

[thugulike]

Does anybody know if HMRC expect train tickets to attract tax even if the cost is reimbursed and there is no profit element on this business expense?

[fiction-factory]

Are you talking about reimbursed expenses for train tickets? If so it depends what they were for? If home to work travel then it's probably taxable. If its a necessary business trip to a different location then the expenses should be tax free

[thugulike]

fiction factory I'm not sure it's that simple as I'm not an employee but an 'office holder' and I only travel on rare occasions. I do have to declare a normal working place though. I did take issue with HMRC who were insisting I pay tax on a hotel booking I hadn't even paid. I lost that argument. It does seem very harsh that I have to pay tax on a reimbursement. I can understand mileage where there's a profit element.

[fiction-factory]

Was a work (office) related expense incurred exclusively and necessarily in order to discharge the duties for a journey to a workplace other than the normal one?

[Buenchico]

Travel expenses to or from a regular place of work are definitely taxable. It used to annoy me, during my teaching days, that if I worked unpaid on a Saturday morning to supervise a football team, I could claim back my bus fares to and from the school but I'd then have tax deducted from those fares (that I'd paid for with money that had already had tax deducted).

[Jackdaw33]

Nothing new there, Chico. Just think of VAT. With a very few exceptions you are paying tax from income which has already been taxed when you go shopping. The predecessor to VAT, Purchase Tax, was only raised on valuable items. We have the EU to thank for VAT!

[Sycamore3House]

Train tickets are non vatable (if that is a word) also.

[Peter Pedant]

No VAT

and it depends on sort of where you spend the money

if is travelling to and fro work then it counts as income and is taxable
if you are travelling on work duties between two work places - like a clinic and a hospital then it is not taxable and is an expense

and if you are travelling because you have been elected as that years Master's Joyful ming mong and it is solely to discharge these duties an no thing else then they are allowable expenses

[Peter Pedant]

if you are claiming them to go to a conference and training directly related to your job and are reimbursed by your employer then they are not taxable

[thugulike]

Lol, thank you PP. I knew I could rely on you