'Pool cars'

[Brown and Boris]

I know the usual stuf about pool cars but my neighbour's company are forcing him into an Audi A3 from his van which will up his tax bill.

In fact he works away from home 5 days a week and his only private use in the week is from the hotel to the site and back. When he gets home he has his own car and the firms car will be sat on the road outside as they use the family car at weekends (his van is usually full of tools and the like anyway). Head ofice is too far away to drop it off at weekends and he leaves at 3am Monday morning so hardly practical to drop it off 4pm riday andand pick it up 3am Monday without incurring taxi bills.

Anyway he can have this seen as a 'pool car' given the fact he has no personal use in the week and is stopped from dropping it at work at the weekdn by distance and practicality.

[sgrimshaw]

Unlikely to be classed as a pool car.

Only needs to fail one of the rules to be disallowed as a pool car, seems like your neighbour fails at least 3.

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/eimanual/eim23800.h...

[Brown and Boris]

sgrimshaw said:

Unlikely to be classed as a pool car.

Only needs to fail one of the rules to be disallowed as a pool car, seems like your neighbour fails at least 3.

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/eimanual/eim23800.h...

And the tone of that HMRC page tells you they are not taking prisoners!

[Mx_Stu]

Potentially a bit of a grey area here. The car may not be classed as a pool car, but then again a benefit for private use of motor car may also not arise - On the assumption that he is not using the car for anything other than commuting to a temporary workplace.

Car benefit condition are detailed here:

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/eimanual/EIM23002.h...

[sgrimshaw]

Unlikely to succeed, since the car "is available" for private use.

You can't argue that you don't use it for private use.

If you could, there'd be a lot of happy company car drivers.

HMRC have got cars well sewn up.

[Mx_Stu]

sgrimshaw said:

Unlikely to succeed, since the car "is available" for private use.

You can't argue that you don't use it for private use.

If you could, there'd be a lot of happy company car drivers.

HMRC have got cars well sewn up.

In practice an ex-colleague has assisted a company in arguing, during an an employer compliance review with HMRC, that they were correct not to levy a car benefit on an employee .

The facts of the case were that a lady sales rep had been issued with a rep mobile which she used for business use only. She had something like an Mx-5 (or it may have been an Elise) which she used in the evenings and weekends. She had made it clear to her workplace (who were reluctant not to levy the benefit) that she would'nt be seen dead in the rep mobile. Her mileage log/ odo readings were within a fraction of the multimap calculated routes for her rep duties.

It most probably depends if the employer compliance officer has pulled enough 'yield' in from other areas on the review to really care.

[Goochie]

On a related query:

If a company provides a "pool car" that anyone can use during the course of the working day, but is taken home each night by the same person, the HMRC guidlines would indicate that this is NOT a pool car (fair enough)

However, if no records are kept of the mileage accumulated by others during the day, how do they know how much "personal mileage" has been done by that indivudual?

Also, if that individual volenteers to pay tax on the benefit of using the car to/from work, how would this be done? Can the employee pay tax on 4 miles per day as a "benefit" ?

[Goochie]

sgrimshaw said:

Unlikely to succeed, since the car "is available" for private use.

You can't argue that you don't use it for private use.

If you could, there'd be a lot of happy company car drivers.

HMRC have got cars well sewn up.

If the car does 5000 genuine business miles, whilst being driven by a selection of people druing working hours but then an employee admits to using the car for 500 "private miles" in the year, how would that employee be taxed?

[sgrimshaw]

Goochie said:

sgrimshaw said:

Unlikely to succeed, since the car "is available" for private use.

You can't argue that you don't use it for private use.

If you could, there'd be a lot of happy company car drivers.

HMRC have got cars well sewn up.

If the car does 5000 genuine business miles, whilst being driven by a selection of people druing working hours but then an employee admits to using the car for 500 "private miles" in the year, how would that employee be taxed?

Happily stand to be corrected but .....

Presumeably, the employee's benefit should be calculated based upon the amount of time the car was available to him.

That would be the common sense approach ......

But there's often a significant lack of common sense in the interpretation of Tax legislation by the Revenue.

ETA - doesn't seem to be that straightforward, lots on the HMRC website about it.

Edited by sgrimshaw on Friday 28th November 17:56