| Employment Income: Deductions and Expenses |
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from opening the door too wide. These changes were intended to clarify the law; the explanation of the original clarifications was rumoured to be 50 pages long. |
18A.2.1 Category (a): Section 337: Established Law |
The case law behind section 337 provides much of the background to section 338. The two sections are alternatives; it is enough for the sum to come within one of them to be deductible. Under section 337 an employee may deduct amounts necessarily expended on travelling in the performance of the duties of the employment. This rule is very strict and concessions were made for particularly hard cases, the most interesting being the exemption of extra travel and subsistence allowances when public transport was disrupted by strikes or other industrial action; where the employee had to work late or was severely disabled; or where car-sharing arrangements had broken down.12 This concession is now made statutory by ITEPA section 245 et seq see below §18A.2.6A. Other concessions have been superseded by section 338.13 |
18A.2.1.1 In the Performance of the Duties of the Office |
To be deductible the cost must be ‘incurred in the performance of the duties of the office’—and necessarily so incurred. The Revenue view is that it is not necessary to take the shortest possible route provided there were good business reasons for the route chosen.14 The costs of travelling to work from home are not, in general, deductible15 under this head because the costs are incurred not in the course of performing the duties but in order to get to the |