Should my social care company be paying me a fuel allowance by law?

[alicat77]

been working for the same care agency for 6 yrs and hav not received a penny from them for fuel costs, should they be paying some?

[boxtops]

You mean travel expenses? It will all depend on the terms and conditions of your contract of employment. Dig it out and have a look.

[ummmm]

Fuel costs for what?

[alicat77]

would i be able to back date any years from government? i'v only just found out i'm entitled!!

[alicat77]

i use my car to travel from client to client as i'm a homecarer, i get paid per hour but fuel costs are crippling me as over half go on deisel!!

[ummmm]

Are you self employed?

[boxtops]

If you had any claim it would be from your employer, not the Government - I work in the NHS and we can only claim travel expenses going back 3 months, any more than that is lost. Why didn't you claim it in the past? Surely when you joined, they told you the process for claiming mileage if you are entitled?

[ummmm]

My Aunty works as a homecarer...she doesn't get travel expenses.

[China Doll]

I used to work for a team of carers who went in to homes in camden providing support for the elderly. All of them filled in expense forms for eiher their fuel or their travel ticket for the day.

[ummmm]

So unless you're self employed it would seem that it depends on the companies policy.

[alicat77]

was told the other day by my company that we were able to claim milage back from government! was told by someone else that government were making these companies pay their staff milage by law as they were the ones making all the money from us using our cars in first place!! confused and seriously outa pocket!!

[boxtops]

I think someone's winding you up - the Government doesn't pay travel expenses, it's your employers' responsibility but you can claim tax relief in certain circumstances http://www.nyfvo.org..../travel-expenses.html
It must have been in your contract of employment whether you can claim travel from them for using your own car for your job - surely this would have been clarified when you took the job six years ago, together with essential things like whether you needed business travel cover on your car insurance policy. If you are travelling to pre-booked appointments for work, I'd have thought that business cover would be needed, and your travel mileage rate makes allowance for this.

[Gazza61]

You request a claim form for Business Mileage from Inland Revenue in April each year. Unfortunately you will only be able to claim for the last 12 months - you cannot backdate claims beyond that. The Inland Revenue may send you a tax refund but it takes several months. Sometimes they don't send a refund but just put your tax allowance up which doesn't always help a lot - depending on what you earn in a year. Don't put an excessive claim in - or they reply making you list every single journey for the last tax year which can be a massive job.

[4getmenot]

I work in admin for homecare, you are not legally entitled to it, we pay our carers it but other areas dont

[4getmenot]

we also pay travel time

[Gazza61]

I should have added that not all care companies pay mileage and it is in these cases that you submit a claim form to Inland Revenue. They used to send you a cheque but the last few years they seem to have stopped this and just increase your personal tax allowance. How the care companies get away with not paying mileage and keeping their workforce is a mystery to me with the high price of fuel. The biggest care compamies seem to be the worst offenders - I know this as my wife works for the largest care company in the U.K and they are real tight so and so's. One year she had to list every trip to service users in the last 12 months for the IR - it took us weeks to do and all the Inland Revenue did was to increase her tax allowance a bit. In my opinion it's a total rip-off and the government should legislate and force these care companies to make at least some contribution to mileage. If you knock your vehicle running costs off your wage - with the low wages they pay - you are doing some jobs for virtually nothing. The industry standard for using your own car for your employment is around 50p per mile - so you do the maths.

[factor-fiction]

Just to clarify- the HMRC won't pay all your expenses- you can just claim tax relief on the shortfall between what you claim (0p amile) and the 40p a mile notional rate