Hard times means bigger expense claims
Fiddling expense claims is likely to become a major issue, potentially costing companies hundreds of thousands of pounds, as Government austerity measures start to bite.
Treasury forecasts issued alongside Tuesday's Emergency Budget show that middle income earners will lose hundreds of pounds per year to higher taxes. "Some people will look for other ways to compensate for their lost buying power. Mileage expense claims are an obvious target because they are easy to inflate but hard for employers to check. Legally, it's not merely fiddling, it's theft - but employees often don't see it that way, especially if managers have traditionally been lenient, or too busy to police claims properly," said Mr Jackson.
TMC lists four ‘fiddles' that drivers commonly get away with: Exaggerating the length of journeys by rounding up to the nearest 10 or 100 miles or overstating actual mileages. This is the most commonly used method for inflating mileage claims and can be endemic in companies; claiming for journeys that the driver made but did not pay for (e.g. two colleagues share a car and both claim the mileage); making unnecessary journeys to capitalize on over generous pence-per-mile fuel expenses rates and Fabricating journeys entirely (for personal profit or to compensate for an inadequate pence-per-mile fuel rate). "When drivers know that their reports are being independently monitored, they take more care to report accurate mileages," said Mr Jackson. "In some cases, overall mileage claims fall by 25 percent."
22 July 2010Human Resources news brought to you by theHRDIRECTOR ; the only independent strategic HR publication.
Created on: 22-Jul-10 14:25
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