Government BIK changes for company cars.
Discussion
I am a Field Engineer earning 37k a year and can basically pick anything up to £44000 in value and under 130c02. But I was shocked to see that I used to pay £400 PA for a Passat in 2005 and now I would pay more than 1500 and increasing every year. What car would you pick given the new tax rules. I had my heart set on a n A6 Black Edition or other premium make but the £2000 a year tax bill rising to £2450 in 2020 is just to much for me to digest. I am not allowed to go for hybrids or plugins yet so I'm stuck with diesel. My car is also full of tools so add half a ton the the weight so a hairdryer of a car is out of the question. I'm all for paying tax but seen as I only do 3000k a year personal and 140000k a year business I don't think it's worth the status.
sickoftheoffset said:
Is that possible? I was under the impression that because it was supplied then it was a taxable benefit even if I did not use it so I thought there was no way around it.
God know why you want a Diesel though especially knowing the Govt will be doing all they can to encourage people away from them. One thing is for sure @140k miles you certainly do not want to be running a personal car for that.
Note Golf GTD estate is nice well under budget
F31 330d rwd great car very economical plus fast
You could go for the latest 516/518/520d Estate all auto - mega mpg vast and so comfy for 140k miles it will eat it up. Heck try to sneak a 530d in there if possible.
Note Golf GTD estate is nice well under budget
F31 330d rwd great car very economical plus fast
You could go for the latest 516/518/520d Estate all auto - mega mpg vast and so comfy for 140k miles it will eat it up. Heck try to sneak a 530d in there if possible.
chrisispringles said:
Is a pick-up an option? The BIK rules for a company pick-up are the same as for a van, so the BIK value is set at a fixed £3170 if you do personal use. For a 20% taxpayer that means an annual tax bill of £630.
With half a ton of tools to carry this is the obvious choice. If your employer won't allow this they're nuts!sickoftheoffset said:
Is that possible? I was under the impression that because it was supplied then it was a taxable benefit even if I did not use it so I thought there was no way around it.
That's correct.It's theoretically possible to not pay BIK if the company will prohibit any private use of the car, but they generally won't do that as it's impossible to monitor and if you get caught the company would get hammered by HMRC.
For field sales and service engineers it's a bit of bummer sometimes. We had a guy with 4 kids so he couldn't use his company car for much personal use and he used to get very upset about the tax, especially as ours included fuel too.
I suppose you're saving on commute costs for a normal job and at the end of the day the actual tax is still less than if you had to buy and run a car yourself, but annoying if the car isn't what you'd want, or you've still got to buy another car anyway.
At my last firm we paid no BiK on the company cars: it required -
Written travel policy to expressly forbid all private use on pain of disciplinary action.
Mileage logs for the cars and a policy that called for them to be submitted weekly.
Agreement of our accountants.
Three cars and a small company: harder in a big one, I suspect, but because 'computer says no' rather than because of HMRC.
Written travel policy to expressly forbid all private use on pain of disciplinary action.
Mileage logs for the cars and a policy that called for them to be submitted weekly.
Agreement of our accountants.
Three cars and a small company: harder in a big one, I suspect, but because 'computer says no' rather than because of HMRC.
IroningMan said:
At my last firm we paid no BiK on the company cars: it required -
Written travel policy to expressly forbid all private use on pain of disciplinary action.
Mileage logs for the cars and a policy that called for them to be submitted weekly.
Agreement of our accountants.
Three cars and a small company: harder in a big one, I suspect, but because 'computer says no' rather than because of HMRC.
A company I used to work for did this for the field engineers cars. They were required to submit mileage at start and end of each working day. Whenever the cars were changed over, there was a huge amount of effort among the staff to find the easiest (and easiest to reverse) way to disable the speedometer/odometer. Written travel policy to expressly forbid all private use on pain of disciplinary action.
Mileage logs for the cars and a policy that called for them to be submitted weekly.
Agreement of our accountants.
Three cars and a small company: harder in a big one, I suspect, but because 'computer says no' rather than because of HMRC.
The entire fleet (Escort diesels, IIRC) went on to break their cambelts in service as they'd all done 20-30k more than the odometer and service schedule presumed.
Checked with my employer and it's a no go with a double cab because the emissions are higher than 130. It seems I have to have a car or the other option is to leave. So what do I choose? It seems that my colleagues are picking Jaguar XF saloons as the tax is lower than the estate. I don't think they are that great tbh and they have to have low spec to keep under £650 per month. I negotiated on my start of employment that I could have an Audi A6 Black Edition estate which sounded great until I saw the tax. I would ideally prefer an auto box due to years of driving bad ergonomically designed cars playing havoc with my back. I know this sounds silly but what would others choose if you were a Field Engineer covering 40k miles per annum?
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