Edited version of your written advice

Authorisation Number: 4110059851912

Date of advice: 17 October 2018

Ruling

Subject: Travel expenses – differing places of work

Question 1

Are you entitled to a deduction for travel expenses you incurred when travelling between your home and a worksite?

Answer

No.

Question 2

Are you entitled to a deduction for travel expenses you incurred when travelling between two different worksites in the one day?

Answer

Yes.

This ruling applies for the following period:

Year ended 30 June 20XX

The scheme commenced on:

1 July 20XX

Relevant facts

You were employed as a senior customer service officer for your state. You were responsible for several work centres in metropolitan and regional areas.

A car was provided for the non-metropolitan visits, but other travel was at your expense without reimbursement, you paid all travel expenses yourself.

You worked closely with the managers of the respective centres, and assisted them to meet the needs of the centre, including meeting key performance indicators, training staff, dealing with complex claiming issues and attending team meetings.

Your role required travel to a different centre each day, generally to each metropolitan centre once per week with each day’s destination mostly at your discretion. This was determined by the centre’s needs at the time, number of staff, available office space and availability of the manager.

Sometimes you were directed to work at a particular centre to cover staff shortages and annual leave, often with notice in advance, but also on the previous night or early in the working day, to cover for instance, sick leave.

You occasionally need to travel from one centre to another to cover an absence there.

Once a month you would travel from home to one centre, then in the afternoon travel to another centre to attend a meeting.

You also travelled between centres to attend meetings when requested, approximately twice per month on average.

It was very rare for you to work at the same work centre two or more days in a row.

A typical working fortnight would see you visiting four of the metropolitan centres.

You would leave home and travel to each hearing centre.

The pattern would change if one of the managers wanted you to attend their centre on an unscheduled day, if staff members were away, for instance.

One of the centres might not have a spare office on a particular day, so you would check with the manager of that office a few days before the scheduled visit, and if this was the case, so you would attend another centre for the day.

When requested, you would leave one centre to travel to another, which only occurred once or twice a month without prior notice.

If you knew in advance you would travel directly to the alternate centre from home.

You would usually get a week’s notice of the change.

This kind of arrangement is a permanent feature of your work.

Your role was to provide administration support and training to each of the 6 metropolitan centres each week.

This could be carried out face to face or remotely.

The managers were happy for you to work directly with their staff to get the best result.

If you considered your assistance was required at a different centre you would change the existing work pattern.

There was no regular workplace which was attended more than the others.

Your total vehicle work distance travelled in a year was in excess of 5000km.

There was some work preparation done at your home, but not to the extent of commencing work at home.

Relevant legislative provisions

Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 section 8-1

Reasons for decision

Section 8-1 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 (ITAA 1997) allows a deduction for a loss or outgoing to the extent to which it is incurred in gaining or producing assessable income, except where the loss or outgoing is of a capital, private or domestic nature, or relates to the earning of exempt income.

Travel between home and work

Draft Taxation Ruling TR 2017/D6 (at paragraph 15) expresses the view that an employee’s ordinary costs of travelling between home and work are of a private or domestic nature and are not deductible. Such costs are 'preliminary to the work' and are not incurred in performing the work activities.

However, a deduction for travel expenses between home and work may be allowed if an employee’s work is itinerant.

Itinerancy

Taxation Ruling TR 95/34 (at paragraph 7) cited certain indicators of itinerancy including the relevant explanatory paragraphs. The indicators are not exhaustive but they provide guidelines for determining whether an employee's work is itinerant. It is considered that no single factor on its own is necessarily decisive.

The question of whether an employee's 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. Further, itinerant work may be a permanent or temporary feature of an employee's duties.

Your circumstances

Your work is not itinerant because you are not required to undertake several journeys between different workplaces per day (Federal Commissioner of Taxation v. Wiener 78 ATC 4006; (1978) 8 ATR 33) (Wiener’s case). Instead you travel to each metropolitan centre once a week with each day’s destination mostly at your discretion, if not depending on availability of the manager, office space, and the centre’s needs at the time. There is not a major degree of uncertainty, as you generally know in advance which centre you need to attend. It is not relevant whether your home is effectively the base of your employment.

Therefore, as your work is not itinerant your travel expenses between home and work are not considered to have been incurred in the performance of your work and/ or your income earning activities. As such you are not entitled to a deduction for travel expenses between home and work under section 8-1 of the ITAA 1997.

Travel between two different work sites.

On the days after commencing your duties, where you are required to travel to a different work site you are travelling on work rather than to work. The travel is undertaken in the performance of your duties and/ or your income earning activities. Therefore where you finish work at one work site and travel directly to the next work site in order to continue your work with your employer, you will be entitled to claim a deduction for your travel expenses for that portion of your journey.