Protecting Your Clients from a Revenue T&S Audit
When Revenue questions a client's travel and subsistence, you're the one in the room. Getting it wrong is rarely dramatic — it's a flat mileage rate, a commute claimed as business travel, an ERR filing that slipped — but the consequence is real: reimbursements reclassified as taxable pay, with PAYE, USC, and PRSI to follow. This guide is about the practitioner's role as shield: the T&S issues Revenue targets, how to prevent them across a client book, the exposure when they're missed, and an audit-readiness review you can run — and bill — for clients.
You're the Client's First Line of Defence
T&S findings are almost always preventable. They come from the same handful of mistakes, repeated quietly across pay runs until an audit surfaces them. The practice that prepares or reviews the numbers is best placed to stop them — and is also the one whose judgement is implicitly on the line when Revenue looks.
Protecting clients isn't about reacting to an audit; it's about making sure there's nothing to find. That means knowing what Revenue targets, preventing it at source, and keeping records that prove the position.
The T&S Findings Revenue Targets
The audit pattern is predictable. These are the recurring T&S findings worth checking on every client — covered in depth in our Revenue audit triggers guide.
Commuting claimed as business travel
Home to the normal place of work is never claimable — Revenue's most common disallowance. Watch home-based and hybrid staff especially.
Flat rate instead of progressive bands
A single mileage rate all year, ignoring the four cumulative bands and band crossovers, over- or under-pays at source.
Round-sum allowances
Flat monthly "travel allowances" not tied to actual, vouched journeys are treated as taxable pay.
Missing logs or business purpose
No journey detail, no purpose, no times for subsistence — nothing to stand behind the claim.
Country money mixed with mileage
Paying site-based country money and civil service mileage for the same travel is the inconsistency Revenue targets in construction.
Mileage plus a company car
An employee with a company car (taxed on BIK) cannot also claim civil service mileage for the same business travel.
ERR missed or late
Reimbursed T&S not reported to ROS on or before payment puts the tax-free treatment at risk.
The Exposure When It Goes Wrong
The penalty isn't usually a fine for the claim itself — it's the loss of tax-free treatment. If Revenue reclassifies reimbursements as pay, the employer owes PAYE, USC, and employer PRSI on the amounts, with interest and penalties on top.
Because T&S is recurring, a single systemic error — a flat rate, a mis-treated commute, a round-sum allowance — usually isn't one wrong claim. It's the same wrong claim repeated every pay run, across multiple employees, for as long as it's gone unnoticed. That's how a routine reimbursement line becomes a five-figure back-tax exposure.
It lands on the client. But the conversation about why it wasn't caught happens with the practice — which is exactly why proactive protection is part of the job.
How to Protect Clients Proactively
The most reliable protection is to prevent the errors at source, so there's simply nothing to find later.
Get the rules right at source
Capture each trip with the correct civil service rate and band, the lesser-of comparison, a business purpose, and a documented normal place of work per employee.
File ERR on time, every time
Report reimbursed T&S to ROS on or before payment, with a record that reconciles to the claims — see the ERR guide.
Keep a six-year audit trail
A complete, time-stamped record — trip, rate, approval, payment, ERR submission — retrievable for the full retention period turns an audit into a quick produce-the-evidence exercise.
Run a periodic readiness review
A regular check of NPW assumptions, rate accuracy, documentation, and ERR history across clients catches anything that slips before Revenue does.
The Audit-Readiness Review (You Can Bill This)
Protecting clients is also a service. A periodic T&S audit-readiness review is a clean, value-add engagement — and it pairs naturally with offering ERR compliance as a recurring service. A simple checklist per client:
- Is each employee's normal place of work documented, and are home-start journeys using the lesser-of rule?
- Are mileage claims on the correct progressive bands, with crossovers handled?
- Any round-sum allowances, or mileage paid to company-car drivers?
- Is subsistence within the eligibility tests; is country money kept separate from mileage?
- Has every pay cycle's ERR been filed on or before payment, with records retained?
Test the client process against the full compliance checklist.
How Expense.ie Helps You Protect Clients
Errors prevented at source
Civil service rates, progressive bands, the lesser-of rule, and subsistence tests applied as clients log — so most findings never arise.
A complete audit trail
Every claim's trip, rate, approval, payment, and ERR submission recorded and retrievable for six years — evidence on demand.
ERR filed on time
ROS-ready exports per client per cycle, so the on-or-before-payment deadline is met without manual tracking.
Reviewable across the book
One practice dashboard makes an audit-readiness review across all clients a quick check — the multi-client workflow in practice.
Client-Protection FAQ
Related Resources
Make Sure There's Nothing to Find
Free practitioner access lets your practice prevent T&S errors at source across every client, keep a six-year audit trail, and file ERR on time — so a Revenue audit becomes produce-the-evidence, not scramble-and-hope.
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