Edited version of your written advice

Authorisation Number: 1012675053971

Ruling

Subject: Home to work travel

Question

Are you entitled to a deduction for travel between your home and the airport?

Answer

No.

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 employed by a contract labour firm as a contractor.

You are sent your assignments via e-mail.

You make your way to the airport and travel to the site by air. The end customer covers the cost of the airfare to and from the site.

You incur expenses for your travel to and from the airport.

You worked for a number of different end companies in the relevant financial year.

The length of the assignment varies between three to fourteen days. The assignments are "ad-hoc" without any fixed timetable or certainty of work.

You also carry approximately an amount of checked baggage equipment and safety wear and some carry on equipment containing computer and phone.

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 Income tax: employees carrying out itinerant work - deductions, allowances and reimbursements for transport expenses).

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, travel is not a fundamental part of your work, you do not travel between worksites before returning home and your equipment is not considered to be bulky. Furthermore, even though you worked at a number of sites during the year, the only place you incurred expenses was for travel between your home and the airport.

Based on the indicators above, your work is not considered to be itinerant. Therefore, you are not entitled to a deduction for the cost of travel between your home and the airport.