Travel and expenses

Expenses are those costs that you may incur when completing tasks or errands for your client, and that they have agreed to reimburse you for.

This can include things like paying for groceries, picking up milk or paying for lunch or activities when you are out and about and travel providing support. Your client can now choose to pay expenses and reimburse you for these when you book their visits.

If your client is paying expenses, when you submit your visit you can claim these at the same time. You add in the kilometres you have travelled and/or the cost of the expense. Your visit will be approved in 24 hours if this amount is under or at the limit your client set.

You may need to keep the receipts for your expenses and provide these to your client if requested to do so. Ask you client how they would like to manage this.

Travel expenses

The IRD publishes a recommended mileage rate to be used by a self-employed (contractors) person to calculate the cost of using their private vehicle for business purposes.

The most recently published rate is 83 cents per kilometre. This per kilometre rate is widely accepted as a reasonable estimate of the costs for running and maintaining a vehicle.

Mycare has set the per kilometre rate to 73c for the workers at Mycare  who may use their own vehicle for activities that you have agreed to pay travel expenses for.

The additional 10c can be claimed at when you complete a tax return but you must keep a record of actual vehicle expenses.

Do I have to pay tax on mileage and expenses?

Mileage and costs incurred while working for a client are business expenses incurred when generating income and is not taxed.

If you have any questions about travel contact the Customer Success team on 09 887 9777 who are happy to discuss this with you.

An example

Your client might have asked you to take their child to the zoo as part of a respite visit and they want to pay you for the travel and zoo ticket. They have chosen to reimburse you for the travel and the tickets. On the day you record the distance to the zoo as 17km and the tickets cost $37.50. When you submit your visit you claim 17kms as a travel expense and $37.50 as an expense. If this is under the amount that the client chose to pay when they booked your visit, your visit will be approved in 24 hours.

Want some help, or need some advice about expenses. The Customer Engagement team are available to help on 09 887 9777 or email Mycare at hello@mycare.co.nz