Accountants ARE helpful.

(well sometimes).

My accountant reckons he can sort out for me to get 20p off my tax for every mile I cycle for work.
How cool is that.

My dad's one of those accountants. Always looking for ways to reduce tax.

But are you paying him for advice you could (with help from the HUGE amount of tax advice websites) get yourself and do the self assessment thang?

(well sometimes).

My accountant reckons he can sort out for me to get 20p off my tax for every mile I cycle for work.
How cool is that.

you only just found out about that?

it's a 20p per mile tax-free allowance for using your own bike to get to work in fact. but you can't claim a bike as well, although if you do a reasonable mileage, it still works out better.

But are you paying him for advice you could (with help from the HUGE amount of tax advice websites) get yourself and do the self assessment thang?

That's a lot of effort for most especially if their time is previous to them i.e. self employed or working in a very lucrative sector where long hours are essential. An accountant, if you can afford it, will make getting the most out of your money a lot easier.

(well sometimes).

My accountant reckons he can sort out for me to get 20p off my tax for every mile I cycle for work.
How cool is that.

you only just found out about that?

it's a 20p per mile tax-free allowance for using your own bike to get to work in fact. but you can't claim a bike as well, although if you do a reasonable mileage, it still works out better.

Give me the gory details... £720 back per year? Hell yeah.

Is this open to PAYE employees too or is this a thing for the self-employed?

From what I understand, all your work related miles (not commuting to work, but travel for work), can be treated as you would mileage for a car. The rate that you can claim back is £0.20/mile travelled.

I'm pretty sure that you can't claim for commuting since this counts as a private journey - see http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/mileage/employee-factsheet.htm

you only just found out about that?

it's a 20p per mile tax-free allowance for using your own bike to get to work in fact. but you can't claim a bike as well, although if you do a reasonable mileage, it still works out better.

It's only 20p per mile for miles done during the course of your work e.g. travelling between meetings. Commuting doesn't generally count unless you are obliged by your work to travel to some particular appointment, and then I think only the extra miles count.

Edit: beaten to the button...

so if you use your bike at work do you get th 20p/mile?

yep.

I'm neither self employed nor PAYE, but I get 20p for every mile at work.

I guess the fact that I don't "commute" as such means I get it for every trip to and from wherever I happen to be at the time. I've heard it doesn't count for commuting, as commented above, but I'm not sure about the loopholes and stuff, it still depends wether your employer givs any travel expenses at all.

Yes, as long as it's not private travel, and is required by your work.

So, for me, if I travel between datacentres/to different sites on my bike, I can claim £0.20/mile back from the company. If they don't pay me this, I am entitled to that much tax relief I believe, which is acquired by notifying the Inland Revenue. If your company pays you some allowance, but less than £0.20, then you can claim the difference.

However, I am definitely not an authority on tax, so it's probably best to approach an accountant about it :-)

yeah, I just trust what my accountant tells me.

blindly, as most of it goes over my head.

I hope he doesn't put us in the shit!

yes, in my tax fiasco this year I did manage to confirm that it's 20p/mile to/from meetings, picking up equipment, etc. It's great for those working from home bc pretty much every trip you do for work out of your house is 20p/mile

COURIERS GET 20P/MILE FOR EVERY MILE RODE. 20p x 50 mile x 5 days = £50 week!!

i don't do the 20p a mile thing but claim the cost of my bike as a capital allowance and get the vat off.
it all depends how expensive your bike is or how many miles you do as to what is most tax effective.

Technically, aren't you entitles to claim back the percentage of your bike that you actually use as transport to, or for work? Eg. If I reckon that 50% of my bike use is directly work-related, then I can claim back 50% of the cost of the bike as an expense? Ditto money spent on repairs for said bike?

Please note the question marks in that, mind…

I never thought it was wroth getting an accountant as a PAYE employee... now I think I really should.

Technically, aren't you entitles to claim back the percentage of your bike that you actually use as transport to, or for work? Eg. If I reckon that 50% of my bike use is directly work-related, then I can claim back 50% of the cost of the bike as an expense? Ditto money spent on repairs for said bike?

Please note the question marks in that, mind…

AFAIK you can't claim the cost of the bike for getting to work if you have a usual place of work like an office. if however you work at different locations and have an office at home then you can claim for the use of the bike for all the journeys you make.
Or if the bike was left at the office location and you used it for work once you had traveled to the office you could claim 100% of the cost of the bike (over 4 years as a capital allowance)

Hang on, isn't it 20p per mile off your taxable income rather than off your tax.

That's the way it worked in Aus. So as Roxy said above, if a courier rides 50miles a week, rather than getting £2500 back in cash, they would get £2500 taken off their income for tax purposes.

Of course, I could be wrong.

AFAIK you can't claim the cost of the bike for getting to work if you have a usual place of work like an office. if however you work at different locations and have an office at home then you can claim for the use of the bike for all the journeys you make.
Or if the bike was left at the office location and you used it for work once you had traveled to the office you could claim 100% of the cost of the bike (over 4 years as a capital allowance)

But if your self-employed/freelance, with no fixed office space, then you can? Without a maximum time limit?

A - Do nothing, fail to claim any money back.
B - Claim 0.20 GBP per mile on work related travel.

What you want to do is take secret option number C.
I talked the company into £0.40 per mile on the basis of saved working time :]

also, am I right in thinking that as of this tax year, you can claim back 100 percent capital allowances up to 50k?

As Peter my accountant said to me (before he went on holiday). I could claim my bike as capital allowance AND get 20p a mile for every journey I make for work. As we have seven sites, soon to be nine and I work from home as well sometimes that is a lot of miles a week.
Of course I have to check out the competition at nights as well, as part of my job. So quite a lot of my evening social journeys could be classified as a work journey. (Just no house parties.)
I believe that you can also get some kind of meal allowance as "fuel". Although this would be pretty pointless for me as we have a superb "staff canteen".
He is away on holiday at the moment though so I haven't actually sorted any of this out. But will let you know what comes of it.

As Peter my accountant said to me (before he went on holiday). I could claim my bike as capital allowance AND get 20p a mile for every journey I make for work. As we have seven sites, soon to be nine and I work from home as well sometimes that is a lot of miles a week.
Of course I have to check out the competition at nights as well, as part of my job. So quite a lot of my evening social journeys could be classified as a work journey. (Just no house parties.)
I believe that you can also get some kind of meal allowance as "fuel". Although this would be pretty pointless for me as we have a superb "staff canteen".
He is away on holiday at the moment though so I haven't actually sorted any of this out. But will let you know what comes of it.

You can't claim the 20p and the capital allowances. Claiming capital allowances means that the bike is owned by the business, which clearly isn't compatible with the 20p per mile concessionary wear and tear allowance that you can receive from your employer without it being considered a benefit in kind.

The actual tax saving on that 20p is - at most - 41%, so 8.2p.

And Object, if you got 40p per mile off of your work you have to pay tax on the extra 20p (which will be reported on your P11D).

Finally, as for the multiple sites if depends on if they are "regular" work places. If you go there a lot, it's commuting and not a "work journey", so no 20p per mile tax free!

And Object, if you got 40p per mile off of your work you have to pay tax on the extra 20p (which will be reported on your P11D).

I know. I'm an accoutant. But paying tax on half of my £0.40 still leaves me up on the coinage :]

yes, in my tax fiasco this year I did manage to confirm that it's 20p/mile to/from meetings, picking up equipment, etc. It's great for those working from home bc pretty much every trip you do for work out of your house is 20p/mile

COURIERS GET 20P/MILE FOR EVERY MILE RODE. 20p x 50 mile x 5 days = £50 week!!

Isn't that like a whole day's work?!?! I wonder how many couriers know that.