In Mainpay Ltd v HMRC [2024] UKUT 233 (TCC) (16 August) the UT dismissed the taxpayer’s appeal and upheld the FTT’s decision that the taxpayer company’s reimbursement of travel and subsistence costs to workers it contracted and supplied via employment agencies was subject to tax. The FTT had made no error of law including in deciding that each separate assignment (however short) involved travel to a permanent workplace which resulted in the expenses not being deductible from earnings for the purposes of PAYE and NICs.
Mainpay was an umbrella company providing 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...
