Ok my wife is a member (self employed) of a "llp". She works in a franchise. She has just been told that the tax rues have changed and she can no longer claim mileage allowance. This is because she is a "partner". Her work involves going to various swimming pools to teach babies how to swim (ahhhh), these pools do change from time to time (she currently goes to around 5 different venues). She uses her home as her permanent office but the franchise also have a kind of "base". Thank you, hope you can help.
I'm not an expert on partnerships, but as far as I'm aware, partners cannot claim for personal business expenses on their tax return (although employees can). This is because the partners own the business and expenses they incur should be deducted in the partnership's P&L. This will reduce the partnership's taxable profits so tax is saved this way, rather than through a deduction for the partner individually. There might be something in the partnership agreement about claiming travel expenses as I'd expect that if the LLP can claim a deduction, then she would be reimbursed. As for new rules, the only ones I'm aware off are anti avoidance rules that mean that members of an LLP will now only be classed as self employed if they are actually a 'partner' (i.e. some form of financial risk/control). Previously, all members of an LLP were treated as self employed regardless. The new rules are to stop LLPs from engaging their employees as 'members' such that they were automatically deemed to be self employed and didn't have to pay national insurance. In terms of qualifying travel expenses, your wife's travel to the 5 temporary workplaces would qualify for a deduction providing she doesn't spend more than 40% of her time at any one (although as mentioned above, this would be a deduction on the partnership return). No deductions are allowed for ordinary commuting so travel to and from the franchise probably wouldn't qualify. The only time HMRC might argue that travel to the 5 swimming pools wouldn't qualify is if her permanent workplace was deemed to be an 'area' which encompasses the 5 locations. Although if she works most of the time from home then her permanent workplace would be her home/franchise HQ.
