Private ruling: Work related expenses - car - itinerant worker
Date of advice: 3 July 2015
Published: July 2015
Ruling period: Year ended 30 June 2013 til year ended 30 June 2020
Date scheme commenced: 1 July 20XX

Ruling: Q1: Are you entitled to claim a deduction for work related car expenses as an itinerant worker? | A1: Yes.

Relevant facts and circumstances: You are employed to provide services to clients. Your employer does not have an office where you are located. You travel to clients' homes to provide services. Your employer has a makeshift office located in the community hall of one of the towns you visit. There is a computer and a fax machine at the community hall, which you are able to utilise. You will generally be advised the day prior to visiting this town, whether you will be seeing clients in their homes or in the community hall however this can change on the day. You complete client paperwork at home and you sign on and sign off from work with your employer using an application on your mobile phone. Each day you travel to client homes, the Nursing Home or community hall at various towns within the district to provide services to your clients. You do not know from one week to the next which clients you will be required to see and changes to client appointments can be made with a little notice. You are generally informed of which clients you are required to see the night before the appointment. You have also been contacted to visit clients on the same day when other workers have been sick or required personal leave.

Relevant legislative provisions: Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 section 8-1

Reasons for decision: Summary: Section 8-1 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 deals with general deductions and allows a deduction for all losses or outgoings to the extent to which they are incurred in gaining or producing assessable income, except to the extent that they are outgoings of a capital, private or domestic nature. Generally a deduction is not allowable for the cost of travel between home and work as it is considered a private expense. However, a deduction may be allowable for the cost of travel between home and work for an employee who is engaged in itinerant work. Taxation Ruling TR 95/34 provides guidelines for establishing whether an employee is carrying out itinerant work. As per TR 95/34, the following characteristics have emerged from cases 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 worksite to another. An employee must regularly work at more than one worksite before returning to his or her usual place of residence, and • 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). It should be noted that the above characteristics are not exhaustive and 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. In your case, it is considered that travel is a fundamental part of your work; you regularly attend various clients' residences and other sites to carry out your duties, there is no single 'workplace' which could be considered your fixed place of work. You are advised by your employer which locations you need to attend the next week, however you can be notified as little as the night before the visit. Given these facts we consider there is a degree of uncertainty of location as there is no regular pattern of worksites you are required to attend. Therefore, it is considered you are engaged in itinerant work and the cost of travel from home to your work locations is deductible under section 8-1 of the ITAA 1997.