15 April 2010 External T.I. 2009-0311091E5 - personal versus employment travel

Please note that the following document, although believed to be correct at the time of issue, may not represent the current position of the CRA.
Prenez note que ce document, bien qu'exact au moment émis, peut ne pas représenter la position actuelle de l'ARC.

Principal Issues: 1. Does travel between home and school location(s) in an employer-provided vehicle give rise to a taxable benefit?
2. Does travel between home, meetings and conferences in an employer-provided vehicle give rise to a taxable benefit?

Position: 1. It is a question of fact, but likely yes in this situation
2. It is a question of fact.

Reasons: 1. Any location at or from which the employee regularly reports for work or performs the duties of employment is generally considered a regular place of employment. An employee can have more than one regular place of employment, which can change from time to time because of the nature of the employment situation. Travel between the employee's home and a regular place of employment is personal travel and the use of an employer's vehicle for this travel would give rise to a taxable benefit.
2. It is unclear whether the meetings and conferences are held with sufficient regularity or at locations such as would constitute a regular place of employment.

								2009-031109
XXXXXXXXXX 							Brenda White
								519-645-5454
April 15, 2010

Dear XXXXXXXXXX :

Re: Technical Interpretation Request - Auto Benefit Calculation

This is in response to your letter of February 20, 2009 inquiring whether a taxable benefit arises from the use of an employer-provided automobile in particular circumstances.

Written confirmation of the tax implications inherent in particular transactions is given by this Directorate only where the transactions are proposed and are the subject matter of a request for an advance income tax ruling submitted in the manner set out in Information Circular 70-6R5, "Advanced Income Tax Rulings", dated May 17, 2002. This Information Circular and other Canada Revenue Agency ("CRA") publications can be accessed on the internet at http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca. Where the particular transactions are complete, the inquiry should be addressed to the relevant tax services office, a list of which is available on the "Contact Us" page of the CRA website. Although we cannot comment on your specific situation, we are prepared to provide the following comments in respect of the issues that you raised. Please note, however, that these comments are of a general nature only and are not binding on the CRA.

We understand that in the performance of your employment duties, you use an employer-provided vehicle to report to an office location and are also required to travel frequently to various predetermined school locations within the School Division. On some days you travel directly from home to a school location. In addition you also travel to a variety of meetings and conferences throughout the province.

As noted in Chapter 3 of T4130, "Employer's Guide: Taxable Benefits", any location at or from which the employee regularly reports for work or performs the duties of employment is generally considered a regular place of employment. It is the CRA's long-standing position that travel between an employee's home and his or her regular place of employment is personal travel. This means that the use of an employer-provided automobile in respect of such travel gives rise to a taxable benefit. An exception would occur where an employer requires an employee to proceed directly from home to a point of call other than the employer's place of business to which the employee reports regularly (e.g., such as a salesperson or repairman visiting customers) or to return home from such a point. These particular trips are not considered to be of a personal nature.

Whether an employee regularly reports for work at a particular location is a question of fact requiring a review of all the relevant facts of each case. An employee who reports to work at a particular site for an extended period of time will likely be considered to regularly report to work at such location. On the other hand, even though an employee may change location on a frequent basis, it will also be relevant to consider whether such employee reports for work at a particular location more than once, and the frequency of such returns. It should also be noted that in the CRA's view an employee may have more than one regular place of employment and, in fact, it is the nature of some employment situations that more than one location may be viewed as a regular workplace.

In our view the office location and the school locations are places of business of your employer where you regularly report to work to carry out the duties of your employment. Accordingly, use of an employer-provided automobile for travel between home and each of these respective locations is personal in nature and would give rise to a taxable benefit under section 6 of the Income Tax Act (the "Act").

The determination of whether the meeting and conference locations are regular places of employment is a question of fact requiring a review of all the circumstances surrounding the travel to each of these events. Should these meetings and conferences be conducted at venues other than an employee's regular place of work, the occasional or infrequent travel between the employee's home and these locations may potentially be considered employment-related travel.

The manner of computing the benefit would depend upon whether the vehicle in question qualifies as an automobile, as defined in the Act. For additional information on the calculation of the benefit, please refer to Interpretation Bulletin IT-63R5, "Benefits, Including Standby Charge for an Automobile, from the Personal Use of a Motor Vehicle Supplied by an Employer - after 1992."

We trust the above general comments will be of assistance.

Yours truly,

Renée Shields
for Director
Business and Partnerships Division
Income Tax Rulings Directorate
Legislative Policy and Regulatory Affairs Branch