In Mainpay Ltd v HMRC [2023] UKFTT 16 (TC) (21 December 2022) the FTT found that travel and subsistence expenses paid by an umbrella company to workers it contracted and supplied via employment agencies were subject to tax. Each separate assignment (however short) involved travel to a permanent workplace and so the expenses could not be deducted from payments made to the workers.
The appellant was an umbrella company providing the usual administrative and PAYE services for temporary workers which it engaged and provided via various employment agencies to end clients in hospitals and schools.
It argued that as it engaged workers under an ongoing overarching contract (i.e. under the terms of a single employment) every place where those workers carried out their assignments was a temporary workplace meaning that travel and subsistence expenses would be deductible from the workers’ earnings for tax purposes. It also argued...
