Edited version of private advice

Authorisation Number: 1012645546130

Ruling

Subject: Home to work travel

Question

Are you entitled to a deduction for the cost of travelling between home and work on the basis that your employment is considered itinerant?

Answer

Yes.

This ruling applies for the following periods

Year ended 30 June 2014

Year ended 30 June 2015

Year ended 30 June 2016

Year ended 30 June 2017

Year ended 30 June 2018

The scheme commenced on

1 July 2013

Relevant facts

You are a relief worker.

You continually travel to various locations and usually travel from your home on a Sunday evening to your accommodation where you stay until Friday afternoon and then return home.

You regularly work at more than one site in any given week.

You may be required to provide relief for hours, days or weeks and the period you are required at a particular site can change at any time. 

You are usually advised of your roster on Thursday or Friday of the week prior. This may include an extension of your current trip or you may be required elsewhere.

Relevant legislative provisions

Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 Section 8-1

Reasons for decision

Section 8-1 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 broadly allows a deduction for any losses or outgoings to the extent to which they are incurred in gaining or producing assessable income except to the extent outgoings are of a capital, private or domestic nature.

A deduction is generally not allowable for the cost of transport between home and the normal workplace. However, a deduction is allowable for the cost of travelling between home and work if an employee's work is itinerant (Taxation Ruling TR 95/34).

The question of whether an employees work is itinerant is one of fact, to be determined according to individual circumstances. It is the nature of each individual's duties and not their occupation or industry that determines if they are engaged in itinerant work. 

There have been a number of cases where deductions for transport expenses were allowed on the basis of the taxpayers shifting places of work. Shifting places of work is another term for itinerancy. The following characteristics have emerged from these cases as being indicators of itinerancy: 

• travel is a fundamental part of the employees work

• the existence of a web of work places in the employees regular employment, that is, the employee has no fixed place of work

• the employee continually travels from one work site to another (an employee must regularly work at more than one work site before returning to his or her usual place of residence)

• other factors that may indicate itinerancy (to a lesser degree) include:

• the employee has a degree of uncertainty of location in his or her employment (that is no long term plan or regular pattern exists)

• the employees home constitutes a base of operations

• the employee has to carry bulky equipment from home to different work sites, and

• the employer provides an allowance in recognition of the employees need to travel continually between different work sites.

In your case, it is considered that travel is a fundamental part of your work; there is a web of work places; there is some travel between work sites before returning to your usual place of residence; your employer pays you an allowance in recognition of your need to travel and your work sites are uncertain.

Your employment as a relief worker is considered inherently itinerant in nature. Therefore, you are entitled to a deduction for the cost of travel between your home and the various locations where you perform your employment duties.