UK Itinerant, Independant Contractor! Makeup Artist Travel Expenses...

[Lucy Gibson]

Hi all,

I'm a freelance makeup artist, who after living in London for a decade now lives two hours outside of London (in Manchester) and regularly travels in to work -believe it or not this is cheaper!

I'm currently teaching, on a freelance basis around my makeup work, a course that teaches the Business side of makeup artistry, and when discussing tax deductible expenses, want to make sure I get this absolutely right.

As a makeup artist, I work around 3 times a week, in consistently different locations and studios, it is very rare I travel to the same place more than twice in a year. My work often takes me abroad, Paris and Milan for example during fashion week, where there is a lot of work so it's financially viable for me to travel there to make a profit, but the expenses incurred are my own. It would be true to say that the majority of my work is in London, although I also work, around 10% of the time in Manchester where I now live. So my question is, how much, if any, of my travel expenses are tax deductible? Would my train tickets to London from Manchester be a viable expense?

I've read up a lot on the subject but it still seems a grey area, I know "commuting" is not considered a viable expense, but seemingly only when heading to a fixed place of work. As my work is worldwide and I essentially have to travel to wherever the work may be found, can the same be said for me? I'm heading to Wales next week on work for example! I found this article, that seemingly puts me in the same vein as builders, or chimney sweeps (!), and suggests the expenses are deductible.

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/bimmanual/BIM37620.htm

Is anyone able to clear this one up? Thanks!

Lucy

 

[Becky]

Welcome to the forum Lucy

You are right, it is a grey area. The core of the matter is that expenses are deductible if they are incurred wholly and exclusively for the purposes of the trade. How much of your work is done in London? I think you have scuppered your own ship, so to speak, by saying you used to live in London but moved away to save money. Therefore the travel costs to and from London are incurred as a result of two purposes - to get you to the work, and to save you money by living away from London - and therefore they are not wholly and exclusively for the purposes of your trade.

In the link you posted, it also says this:

Also, I do not wish to prejudge a case where the occupation is itinerant within a certain area but the taxpayer's home is outside that area. The example given in argument was a commercial traveller who has a home in London but whose operational area is confined to Cornwall. I can quite see that in such a case the cost of travelling between London and the borders of the Duchy would not be moneys wholly and exclusively laid out or expended for the purposes of that commercial traveller's business.

Following on from this, the guidance here is more relevant: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/bimmanual/BIM37635.htm

There are some trades (called 'itinerant trades') where the 'home to work' travel may be solely for the purpose of the trade - for example a self-employed travelling sales representative. But in such cases you should bear in mind that travel from a home outside the 'territory' is not allowable - see Brightman's remarks quoted in the penultimate paragraph of BIM37620.

[...]

When considering whether travelling costs are allowable or not you need to establish exactly what is the nature of the taxpayer’s trade, how the business activities are organised and what purpose(s) the journeys to and from home serve. If one of the purposes of the journey is to allow the taxpayer to live away from the place(s) of work then there is inevitable duality of purpose and no deduction is due (see BIM37605). It does not matter that there may also be a business reason for the journey - duality of purpose is fatal to deduction.

On the face of it, it seems that all your other business travel (ie to places other than London) would be an allowable deduction (assuming it is wholly and exclusively for your trade, etc). But I think you may struggle to convince HMRC that travel costs to and from London are deductible, unfortunately.