Claiming tax back on petrol?

Apparently If you use you car for business use you can claim up to 40p back from the goverment,
I am not sure if I should claim this because I a friend of mine said that if I do, the inland revenue would look over all of my tax records. I have 2 properties that I rent out and have never declared them to the tax office. I do'nt make a profit on one of the properties as the mortgage is 拢717 a month and the rent is 拢550, the other mortgage is 拢290 and the rent is 拢330. So as there is no real profit, will I get penalised and have to pay any fines. Also If I can claim for the petrol, what is the deadline?
Thanks

I assume this would be a claim against your employment income. You have 6 years to claim your mielage allowance, but don't forget its tax relief you will be claiming, but not actual cost of the mileage.
I am not here to support you in evading tax, but I would say that if you made a mielage claim either by letter or on a P87, it would be dealt with by a reletively junior officer and would not lead to a full enquiry, unless you were very unlucky.
However, it is quite possible that HMRC already knows you are letting properties and hasn't yet got round to using the info due to lack of resources. Your claim could alert them and lead to an equiry. By the same token, they may well get round to this one day anyway.
At the end of the day, it's down to your conscience.

I advise you to get an accountant and get you tax returns up to date. I am surprised you have not had a visit already.

It is not a matter of whether you owe any tax, it is an offence not to declare income etc.

er..... no profit? you are making 拢880 a month and using it to buy a house.

Only the mortgage interest is deductible for tax purposes, so assuming they are repayment mortgages, you appear to be making a profit.
Declare the property income and save yourself a very large fine and horrendous penalties.
This is fraud against the Crown (cheating
the Revenue) and the penalty is shown in the link.

http://www.gnn.gov.uk/Content/Detail.asp...