Claiming back mileage from the Revenue

[voodoohymn]

Hello,

Hopefully someone here can answer my query before I consult with the Revenue directly;

Basically, the question is "am I entitled to claim back any shortfall between what I was claiming for mileage from my employer and what it appears I could claim from the Revenue?"

I am an employee of a UK based company altho' I personally work from home in Dublin (there is no Irish office) and my job entails doing general admin at home and travelling to clients' offices around the country and Northern Ireland for meetings, etc.


I was using a company car for business trips up until April of last year but the benefit-in-kind was just killing me so I decided to go for a private car option which would entitle me to a car allowance (added onto salary, therefore taxed) and a mileage rebate which is based on the HMRC recommendations in the UK which was around 19p Sterling per mile last year and 21p this year. Not great considering the price of petrol this side of the water but the company doesn't have an expenses policy for Irish employees based on current Irish petrol prices as there are only about 3 people based here and they couldn't be bothered!

Then I stumbled upon the IT51 guidelines! It appears to suggest that both self employed and employed people can claim for business mileage in cases whereby your place of work is your home and you must travel to a client to perform your duties. It works out about €0.46p per kilometre for the first 6437k and then some €0.23p thereafter per calendar year.

Now, am I entitled to claim back any shortfall between what I was claiming for mileage from my employer and what it appears I could claim from the Revenue? I've done the calculation and it appears there's roughly €3500 in the difference (I clock up a fair bit of mileage) but I am concerned about contacting them yet as it sounds too good to be true and knowing my bloody luck it'll turn out I owe them or something!!

Any help on this would be much appreciated,

Thank you

 

[cloughy]

the revenue approved rate is the max rate you can get paid by your employer without any tax being applied, you can't/dont get anything back from revenue, it is just te max rate that they will permit you to receive tax free as re-imbursement of milage.

 

[M K Brazil]

There is a procedure for claiming back car expenses - go to the Revenue's site and type in "car expenses".

Its a long shot because you have a re-imbursement scheme. My advice - easier to get your employer to implement Irish scheme.

 

[mandelbrot]

There is a procedure for claiming back car expenses - go to the Revenue's site and type in "car expenses".

Its a long shot because you have a re-imbursement scheme. My advice - easier to get your employer to implement Irish scheme.

It's not a long-shot, but if OP goes with that option, all of the amounts reimbursed by the employer become taxable, and they'll need good well-vouched records in support of their claim.