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Ruling
Subject: Work related expenses - travel
Are you entitled to a deduction for the cost of travel between your home and your place of employment?
No.
This ruling applies for the following period:
Year ended 30 June 2010
The scheme commences on:
1 July 2009
Relevant facts and circumstances
Casual teachers are paid at an hourly rate.
The hourly rate is for actual teaching only.
All preparation of the classes, communication with students, and marking is done from home.
As a guide it is said that teachers have four hours preparation time for each hour of class taught.
You taught 14.5 hours per week, which relates to 58 hours per week of class preparation, five hours per week of student communication, and two hours (averaged over the semester) of marking.
Every day before a class, the teacher is required to check any messages from students in case there are 'notified absences' which have to be recorded at the beginning of each class. This is done via email from home.
Relevant legislative provisions
Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 Section 8-1.
Reasons for decision
Summary
The cost of travel between work and home is not an allowable deduction.
Detailed reasoning
Section 8-1 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 (ITAA 1997) allows a deduction for all losses and outgoings to the extent to which they are incurred in gaining or producing assessable income, except where the outgoings are of a capital, private or domestic nature.
Travel between home and work
Taxation Ruling TR 95/34 discusses the deductibility of travel expenses and provides that a deduction is generally not allowable for the cost of travel by an employee between home and their normal work place, as it is considered to be a private expense. The cost of travel between home and work is generally incurred to put the employee in a position to perform duties, rather than in the performance of those duties (paragraph 77 of TR 95/34).
This is confirmed in Taxation Ruling TR 95/14, which sets out the Commissioner's view on the deductibility of work related expenses incurred by employee teachers, including tutors and TAFE teachers.
However, TR 95/34 provides that the cost of travel between home and work may be allowable in certain situations such as where:
· the employee's home constitutes a base of employment and travel is between two places of employment
· the employee has to transport by vehicle bulky equipment necessary for employment
· the employee's work is inherently of an itinerant nature.
Home as a base of operations
Travel expenses are deductible where an employee travels between home-based employment and another place of employment.
Paragraph 56 of TR 95/34 states that an employee's home may constitute a base of operations if the work is commenced at or before the time of leaving home to travel to work and the responsibility for completing it is not discharged until the taxpayer attends at the work site. Whether an employee's home constitutes a base of operations depends on the nature and the extent of the activities undertaken by the employee at home.
However, the fact that the employee chooses to perform work at home associated with employment conducted elsewhere is not sufficient for the home to constitute as a base of operations.
In Administrative Appeals Tribunal Case R61 84 ATC 451; (1984) 27 CTBR (NS) Case 118 (Case R61), a part-time tutor employed by three colleges maintained a study at home because there were no facilities for her at the colleges. She claimed the cost of car travel between her home and various colleges on the grounds that she was travelling between two places of income-earning activity. The deduction for travel was disallowed because the expenses were incurred in making the normal return journey between her home and places of employment.
Similarly, in Case M28 80 ATC 187; (1980) 24 CTBR (NS) Case 3, a travel claim was made by a part-time lecturer who was also employed in an administrative capacity by a university students' union. On one day a week he worked at home on academic work associated with his lecturing. On 50% of those days he had to interrupt work at home to drive to the university to take classes. He claimed the cost of those journeys. He also claimed the cost of travel to the university from home on days when he had returned home from his regular job for a meal and then returned to deliver lectures. Held, by the majority, the travel expenses were not deductible. Even though the taxpayer worked at home, his home did not constitute a place of work in the sense that travel between it and the university was essentially travel between two places of work.
A school principal in Case Q1, 83 ATC 1 was also disallowed car expenses attributable to the use of her car to travel between home and work notwithstanding her claim that she needed to work at home after hours and that she used her car to transport bulky teaching materials.
Your case
You are paid for hours spent teaching, and you perform other non-teaching duties at home. It is acknowledged that class preparation, student communication and marking are part of your duties and you do these duties at home.
However, your duties as a teacher do not commence until you reach the campus. Although you may prepare class materials, communicate with students and mark papers at home, it is not a necessary obligation arising from the duties of your employment as a teacher that you carry out work at home. These activities are not sufficient for your home to constitute as a base of employment and it does not imply that you have commenced your work duties at that time.
The circumstances of your case are similar to Case R61 in that you are making the normal return journey between your home and place of employment, not travelling between two places of employment. Accordingly, your home is not considered as a base of employment.
Therefore, the expenses incurred in travelling between your home and place of employment are not deductible under section 8-1 of the ITAA 1997.