2 year rule but contract now falls below 40%?!?!

[MrBen]

Hi all, looking at your advice on this as my accountant doesn't seem to know! I've been on a contract for nearly 4 years delivering a major IT project. After 2 years, I stopped claiming expenses to client site as above 40% of my time. I'm now working more time at home or in London so travel to my client's site is now less than 40% for the year so far. Does this affect me at all? Does this mean I should claim back all expenses for the year? How does this work? Thanks for all responses.

[northernladuk]

If you are over 24 months then you need to have been working on that site less than 40% of the time to claim. It's not to do with a year. It's the total time spent on site.

Work out when you will have spent less than 40% of time on site across the whole gig and you can start claiming from there.

[TheCyclingProgrammer]

If you are over 24 months then you need to have been working on that site less than 40% of the time to claim. It's not to do with a year. It's the total time spent on site.

Work out when you will have spent less than 40% of time on site across the whole gig and you can start claiming from there.

I might be wrong, but doesn’t OP only need to wait until they’ve spent less than 40% of their time onsite over the previous 2 years, calculated on a rolling basis?

For example, if you were on site 100% for 3 years and were no longer claiming travel expenses and then switched to 99% WFH, you’d be able to start claiming travel expenses again after about 15 months because at that point you would have spent less than 40% onsite in the previous 2 years.

[BrilloPad]

Hi all, looking at your advice on this as my accountant doesn't seem to know!

I would look to move accountant or insist they take proper advice.

NLUK knows more than most accountants. And there are a few here who have damned good knowledge. But personally I would not trust advice I have not paid for and could sue for afterwards.

And of course you have no idea if I know what I am talking about or a complete idiot.....

[northernladuk]

I might be wrong, but doesn’t OP only need to wait until they’ve spent less than 40% of their time onsite over the previous 2 years, calculated on a rolling basis?

For example, if you were on site 100% for 3 years and were no longer claiming travel expenses and then switched to 99% WFH, you’d be able to start claiming travel expenses again after about 15 months because at that point you would have spent less than 40% onsite in the previous 2 years.

Ah... Yes sorry you are are right. It's in the rolling 2 year window. Found this example.

You’ve been at a workplace for 24 months and spent 100% of your working time there. You can reset the 24 month rule if you didn’t then commute to that location for the next 14.4 months, or nearly a year and a quarter. This would mean that you’d spent 9.6 months of the last 24 months commuting to that location. Therefore, you would be able to claim T&S from that point forward until the 40% rule was breached.1*(see the pictured example to see the equation)

Scenario 3 on this site.

https://www.clearskyaccounting.co.uk...24-month-rule/

Even longer in the OPs case as he's still attending some of the time.