A benefit arises for the employee when there is personal use of the vehicle. The following information applies to both an automobile and other vehicle.

An employee may use a vehicle supplied by the employer, or person related to the employer, for purposes other than the employer's business. This is considered personal use of the employer-provided vehicle, whether it is owned or leased by the employer, and is a taxable benefit to the employee. Personal use includes driving between the employee's personal residence and their regular place of work as well as any unexpected trips arising as a result of a call to return to work outside the regular hours of employment. This is a long-standing position held by the CRA.

Regular place of employment

A regular place of employment is any location where your employee regularly reports for work or performs the duties of employment. In this case, “regular” means there is some degree of frequency or repetition in the employee’s reporting to that particular work location in a given pay period, month, or year. This “place” does not have to be an establishment of the employer.

A regular place of employment may include:

• the office where your employee reports daily
• several store locations that a manager visits monthly
• a client’s premises when an employee reports there daily for a six -month project
• a client’s premises if the employee has to attend biweekly meetings there

Depending on the circumstances, your employee may have more than one location where they regularly report for work. If your employee has multiple regular work locations and travels between home and several work locations during the day, only the trip from your employee’s home to the first work location or, the trip from the last work location to home is personal driving. Any travel by the employee between work locations is business related.

Exceptions

Where you provide your employees with transportation to a regular place of employment, it may not be a taxable benefit if either of the following applies:

• You need to provide your employees with transportation from pickup points to an employment location when public and private vehicles are neither allowed nor practical at the location because of security or other reasons
• You need to provide transportation to your employee who works at a special work site or a remote location.

Point of call

A point of call is a place the employee goes to perform their employment duties other than the employee’s regular place of employment.

The CRA will consider the employee’s travel between their home to a point of call to be “business” driving (and not a taxable benefit) if you need or allow the employee to travel directly from home to a point of call (such as a salesperson visiting customers, going to a client’s premises for a meeting, or making a repair call) or to return home from that point.