Late-working City lawyers could soon find themselves rubbing shoulders with office cleaners and other shift workers on the night bus if plans to abolish tax relief on late-night taxis are carried through by HM Revenue & Customs.

Where employees are required to work significantly later than normal and after public transport has ceased, HMRC does not currently treat employer-paid taxi fares as a taxable benefit.

However, the revenue is consulting on abolishing tax relief for late-night taxi fares, along with 25 other tax reliefs.

It argues that work patterns have changed since the rules were introduced in 1987, and it can no longer justify treating highly paid professionals such as lawyers more favourably than lower-paid shift workers, such as nurses, office cleaners and restaurant staff, whose jobs routinely require late-night working and who do not therefore qualify for the tax benefit.

The Law Society’s tax law committee said the relief on late-night taxis should be retained because its abolition would impose a ‘not insignificant’ extra cost on employees.

It said it was ‘inappropriate’ to compare lawyers with shift workers, because the latter knew when they needed to work late and could ‘plan their lives accordingly’.