At the request of the employer, employees must travel to the employer's establishment by their own means and then travel to special work sites (as defined in s. 6(6)(a)(i)). The employer pays a reasonable allowance to employees ("Responsible Employees") offering carpooling service to their co-workers in the same community, and who use their personal vehicle for travel between their principal place of residence and the employer's place of business, which is located on the route between the employees' main places of residence and the special work sites. Given the distance to the special work site, it would be unreasonable to expect them to commute daily to the site. CRA stated:
Before it can be concluded that travel allowances paid by the employer to Responsible Employees in the present situation fall within the exemption in subparagraph 6(6)(b)(i), the following conditions must all be satisfied:
- the duties performed by the Responsible Employees must have been carried out at a special work site and been of a temporary nature;
- The Responsible Employees maintained at another location a self-contained domestic establishment as their principal place of residence:
- that was, throughout the period, available for their occupancy and not rented by them to any other person,
- to which, by reason of distance, the Responsible Employees could not reasonably be expected to have returned daily from the special work site;
- board and lodging provided by the employer or reasonable allowances related to it are for a period of at least 36 hours, which may include time spent travelling between the principal place of residence of the Responsible Employees and the special work site.
… [I]f all the[se] conditions … are satisfied, considering the reasonableness of the allowances paid to Responsible Employees, we are of the view that such allowances could be excluded in computing their income by virtue of subparagraph 6(6)(b)(i).