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Ruling

Subject: Travel expenses

Question

Are you entitled to a deduction for travel and accommodation expenses incurred while working away from home?

Answer

No

This ruling applies for the following period

Year ended 30 June 2011

Year ended 30 June 2012

The scheme commenced on

1 July 2010

Relevant facts

You had been working interstate for over a year.

During that time you had set up an apartment in City A where you would stay while working and commuted back to City B on the weekends.

You negotiated with your employer that instead of receiving a working away from home allowance, you would receive a higher salary and manage your own expenses.

This salary arrangement was agreed to be temporary, until you eventually moved to City A with your family, which never happened.

You have incurred expenses for travel and accommodation.

Relevant legislative provisions

Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 Section 8-1

Reasons for decision

Summary

You are not entitled to a deduction for the cost of travelling between home and work as it is considered a private expense.

The costs you incur for accommodation while working interstate is of a private nature and are incurred as a consequence of having your home in one place and working in another. Therefore, they are not incurred in gaining or producing your assessable income and are not deductible.

Detailed reasoning

Section 8-1 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 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 to and from work

In Lunney v. FC of T (1958) 100 CLR 478 the Full High Court laid down the principle that for a deduction to be allowable it is not enough for the expenditure to be an essential prerequisite to the derivation of assessable income. In that case it was held that the costs incurred by a taxpayer in travelling to the place where they work are expenses incurred in order to enable them to earn income but are not expenses incurred in the course of earning that income.

A deduction is generally not allowable for the cost of travel by an employee between home and their normal workplace 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 of employment, rather than in the performance of those duties (Taxation Ruling TR 95/34).

In your case the travel expenses you have incurred are not considered to be incurred in the course of undertaking your income earning activities. Rather the expenses are incurred by you in putting yourself in a position where you can commence performing your duties. Therefore you are not entitled to a deduction for the travel expenses you incur as they are considered private in nature.

Accommodation

The issue of expenses incurred in relation to accommodation near the work place while maintaining a family residence in another location was considered in FC of T v. Toms 89 ATC 4373; (1989) 20 ATR 466 (Toms' Case).

In Toms' Case, the taxpayer was a forest worker who during the working week lived in a caravan in a bush camp 108 kilometres from his family home in Grafton. He claimed it was too far to travel each day to his work in the forest, so that it was necessary to establish a caravan at the camp. He would return home on weekends. He claimed the costs of maintaining his caravan and other living expenses such as the cost of heating and lighting. The Federal Court held that the expenses incurred in relation to the temporary accommodation near the workplace while maintaining a family residence in another location were dictated not by his work but by private considerations, and therefore were not deductible.

In your case, you incurred expenses for renting accommodation to enable you to work in a different city to where your principal residence is. However, as in Toms' Case, the expenses are a prerequisite to the earning of assessable income. They are incurred in order to enable you to earn income but are not incurred in the course of gaining or producing that income.

A deduction is therefore not allowable for your rental accommodation expenses.