Private ruling: Work related expenses - travel
Published: October 2012
Ruling period: Year ended 30 June 2012
Date scheme commenced: 1 July 2011

Ruling: Question and answer | Are you considered to be carrying out itinerant work and therefore entitled to a deduction for the cost of travelling to and from work? | No.

Relevant facts and circumstances: You work for a government agency. You have an administrative base in one workplace, but provide service to several additional workplaces. You are also required to attend meetings as necessary in the period of a week. You have received a 'cents per kilometre' reimbursement for your travel based on office to daily locations and this reimbursement is noted on your group certificate. You travel daily from your home directly to a workplace or scheduled meeting and where possible return to your base at the end of the day. At the start of the day there is the option of travelling to your base if additional resources or equipment needs to be collected and returning to your base is dependent upon the needs of the workplaces on any one day. All of your work equipment and resources are stored in your car and travel with you at all times. You may be required to attend meetings at various locations before, during and after work in a single day. Home visits are also required at times. You are also required to attend and provide professional development across a wide geographical area. You are rostered to service several workplaces on a weekly basis. You visit each workplace at least once a week. Your visits to the workplaces are fixed and occur on an on going basis each week.

Relevant legislative provisions: Income tax Assessment Act 1997 Section 8-1.

Reasons for decision: Summary: Division 28 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 (ITAA 1997) allows a deduction for car expenses incurred in relation to business kilometres. Business kilometres are defined as kilometres travelled in the course of: (a) producing your assessable income; or (b) your travel between workplaces. The kilometres that you travel in your car between schools are business kilometres and consequently deductible. Any allowance received (for example a cents per kilometre allowance) must be included in your assessable income. However, a deduction is generally not allowable for travel between home and a regular place of work as this travel is not undertaken in the course of producing your assessable income and is private in nature. The cost of travelling 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. An exception to the deductibility of home to work travel is where a taxpayer's work is itinerant. The Commissioner's view as regards to when a taxpayer's work would be considered itinerant is contained in Taxation Ruling TR 95/34. TR 95/34 sets out the following characteristics as being indicators of itinerancy: · travel is a fundamental part of the employee's work; · the existence of a 'web' of work places in the employee's regular employment, that is, the employee has no fixed place of work; · the employee continually travels from one work site to another; · 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 and no regular pattern exists) · the employee's home constitutes a base of operations · the employee has to carry bulky equipment from home to different work sites · the employer provides an allowance in recognition of the employee's need to travel continually between different work sites. Whilst the above characteristics are not exhaustive, 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. Comparing your situation to the above features, it is acknowledged that travel is a fundamental part of the duties of your job. However, you are not considered to be an itinerant worker as you are rostered to attend several workplaces each week as part of your normal duties. The roster provides you with workplaces that are considered to be regular fixed places of work. As such there is no uncertainty of location in your employment as required by TR 95/34. Further your home does not constitute a base of operations as you are based at a workplace for administrative purposes and the equipment that you carry does not constitute bulky equipment. Your case can be distinguished from FC of T v Wiener 78 ATC 4006; (1978) 8 ATR 335 in that Wiener was a school teacher employed on a special project which involved teaching at five different schools each day and using her home as a base for preparing lessons and keeping materials. In Taylor v Provan (1975) AC 194 it was established that if a man has several places of work, travelling between them constitutes travelling on his work, even if one of the places of work is also his place of residence. This case can also be distinguished from your circumstances because your home is not one of your places of work. Taking the above into account, you are not classed as an 'itinerant' worker for income tax purposes. Your travel to and from home is not considered to be travel undertaken in the course of producing your assessable income and therefore is not deductible.

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