To think 45p isn’t enough even to cover fuel

[Carryoultheway]

Never mind the extra costs of taking clients places

It's 45p per mile.

What extra costs? What clients?
Can you edit and post more?

Care work

Unless you’re driving a V8 then yes 45p is enough to cover fuel.

Yes but I have to pay more for insurance also more wear and tear on my car.

Public sector worker here of 20 years and I agree it is no longer enough to cover both fuel and the wear and tear on the car that it should. You are making those journeys purely as part of your employment. It's not enough, but I understand it is being reviewed by government.

I am lucky enough to have some control over how many journeys I make and I keep it to the bare minimum.

Gosh I don't know what everyone else is driving but my fuel is about 15p a mile even with the increased cost of petrol. So I think 30p a mile is plenty for the wear and tear probably?

The current 45p per mile has been in place since 2011. It's long overdue a review.

Average fuel usage in the U.K is 60 miles to 7lts of fuel

So 1 mile is 0.12 lts of fuel

Current price of unleaded petrol is 1.50 per litre so every mile is costing you 17.5p meaning you make a profit of 27.5p on every mile to put towards insurance and maintenance.

If you do 30 miles a day that's £8.25 a day towards insurance and maintenance, 5 days a week that's £41.25 a week.

Seems about right, unless you have very high insurance costs and are driving a car that needs a lot of maintenance.

The 45p includes that. It should be enough.

This accounts for all of that. 45p per mile is the generally accepted amount for taxes etc. fuel is no where near that. The rest goes for wear and tear. Insurance you would be paying anyway

I've just looked it up and fuel alone is 15p per mile so that's 30p for every mile to save up

If you are transporting a colleague you can claim upto 5p per Mike extra.

Passenger paymentsIf your employee carries another employee in their own car or van on a business journey, you can pay them passenger payments of up to 5p per mile tax-free.
You will not have to report this to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) or deduct and pay National Insurance on them either.
There’s no equivalent to Mileage Allowance Relief (MAR) for passenger payments.

Assuming your car does a out 30mpg, your costs are about 23p per mile. Thus, you have 22p per mile to contribute towards wear and tear etc.

It's not fabulous, but it's not a disaster either.

I agree that it should go up, but it's still generous unless you're driving a very spendy car.

My car costs 15 p per mile on fuel tops. Business insurance costs hardly anything, a few quid a year.

If you get paid mileage at this rate for a few hundred/thousand miles a year, you actually get quite a lot of your fixed costs, that you'd have to pay anyway (tax, insurance, breakdown cover, MOT) paid for by your employer.

Ta daaah - a diagram
I was wondering this a few months ago - surprisingly, in 2011 when the current rate was introduced, petrol was hovering around the £1.40 mark - there's been a few dips and troughs in the intervening period, but it hasn't increased that dramatically since 2011 - I filled my car up about three weeks ago and paid £1.42 - think it's gone a bit higher since then.
this graph is RAC

If you click on the image you can see both axes

It's been about the same since I first starred claiming mileage about 20 years ago. The rate is set by HMRC though, employers can't pay more without it being taxed.

I don't know why it hasn't been increased?

I drive a 1.2L 7 seater. It costs about 17p per mile in petrol. So would leave 28p per mile for insurance, wear and tear, servicing etc.

What do you drive that costs more than 45p per mile in fuel alone?

How much does a full tank cost you, and how many miles would you get out of a full tank?

I’ve always thought this wear and tear stuff was a bit daft. It’s good for cars to be driven about. They’re not going to fall apart because you do an extra couple of thousand miles a year. It might actually be better for them.

I hate to be that person but I worked for the council in the late 1980s and casual user allowance then was about 70p per mile. I then went on to essential user and got a lump sum plus about 30p per mile. Petrol was then about 40p per litre according to dr Google.

We used to make our wages up with mileage and would drive everywhere.

So environmentally it's better for it to be lower.

Still needs to cover things like brake pads, tyres, the extra mileage means you'll need to service the car quicker than if you didn't use it for business purposes

42p is the usual rate to cover fuel, wear and tear in the car, insurance, tax etc. unless you're running a very thirsty car I don't see it being an issue. I get 42 p a mile and it more than covers my expenses

The bit people are missing though is that it gets dumped in with your pay therefore is subject to the same deductions - so you get far less. Given the wear and tear on your car, it's nowhere near enough.

No it's not. Mileage up to 45p/mile should't be getting any deductions.