Another company car thread...

[MrSpanky49]

Hello legal boffins of PH

Long time lurker first time poster here.

I am a field based employee with a company car, which I pay BIK on. The BIK is quite a substantial amount of cash (around £300 p/m). I'm looking at trying to make the company car business use only so I don't have to pay this.

My contract states that my place of work is my home address, so can I have my car as business use only my home is a place of work according to my company? the nearest office is 90 miles away for reference. I have contacted the fleet manager who has told me the usual of it has to be collected and returned to business premises each morning/evening. Has anyone managed to argue this with a fleet manager?

There are other issues, such as my contract hasn't ben signed by anyone at my company or me. The fleet company has also changed mid term, bringing with it a new range of nice EV and hybrid cars, which weren't an option when I got mine 2 years ago. I was also not given an option to opt out, which is now also allowed, but apparently I need to wait until the end of my 'contract', which is March 2023. My company buys the vehicles and the lease company manages the fleet as I understand.

Have I got to just suck it up until then or is there something I can do? Either by opting out early or not paying BIK?

[randlemarcus]

Practically, you're going to have to suck it up. The fleet manager is quite correct, in that HMRC look incredibly hard at business use only vehicles kept at home. They probably wont just look at your file either, so thats a PITA for the fleet manager, hence why he wont stick his neck out to help you.

Can you use it a LOT more, make the £300 more palatable? And perhaps, if you are lucky, bring forward the "give it back" mileage?

[Muzzer79]

Best option is to find someone else in the company who needs/wants a car and try to palm it off to them so you can opt out.

Those people are few and far between at present though, for the same reasons you don't want it (the car)

[Ussrcossack]

It matters not that your contract of employment isn't signed

You work they pay implied contract

[TwigtheWonderkid]

randlemarcus said:

Practically, you're going to have to suck it up. The fleet manager is quite correct, in that HMRC look incredibly hard at business use only vehicles kept at home.

Your only hope is if your fleet insurers are willing to issue a specified business use only certificate of insurance with your reg number on it. Most won't, but some will. If so, HMRC usually accept that as proof of no pleasure use. But beware, if you can go down that route, any journey at all that isn't for business use and you will be driving uninsured.

[mfmman]

Unfortunately OP, the three responses that you have already had are on the money really

Maybe one of the outcomes of the changes to the ways people work (some recent some older) mean that a company car isn't the perk or prestige thing it used to be so companies need to offer a range of options for their staff

Anyone can buy a new car now, so having something shiny on the drive doesn't confer any kind of 'he/she has made it, look at that nice new car' that would have been the case every three years for a company car driver 25 years ago.

The variety of BIK impact can be dramatic, but is never a consideration to the bean counters, they only (probably quite rightly) look at whole life costs for the company.

With the advent of laptops/tablets and remote connectivity mean public transport travel is not dead time now for a lot of people, driving often is (obviously public transport isn't always practical though) so even if a car allowance is provided, trains etc can still be better value overall.

[MrSpanky49]

Yeah thanks for your contributions. As i thought really, its probably not really worth the hassle. I guess my only real option is to try and sweet talk the fleet manager into letting me out the scheme- there's 600 other field based employees so i'm sure there's someone who could make use of it!

[Tannedbaldhead]

Our way round this was to keep the company cars in the office carpark and pick them up and drop them off when travelling to and from site.

[shep1001]

I had the same issue that the company decided to save money and extended my agreed 3 yr lease to 5 years so I was stuck paying £400/month BIK

I kicked off, they said tuff st we don’t make the tax rules all we have to do is provide a car so suck it up. No way to leave it at the office & nobody else wanted a diesel 5 series because of the tax

2 days later I got squashed into the Armco by a Hungarian lorry on the M1.

That put an end to the argument and I now have a shiny EV that costs about £18/month. No BIK on the electricity to charge it and even the home charger was zero BIK rated.

[Teebs]

Tannedbaldhead said:

Our way round this was to keep the company cars in the office carpark and pick them up and drop them off when travelling to and from site.

How does you get to the office carpark without a car?

[DE1975]

MrSpanky49 said:

Yeah thanks for your contributions. As i thought really, its probably not really worth the hassle. I guess my only real option is to try and sweet talk the fleet manager into letting me out the scheme- there's 600 other field based employees so i'm sure there's someone who could make use of it!

If you don't have any joy palming it off to any other current employees, ask the fleet manager to keep you in mind if there are any new starters likely in the coming months. If they are joining in field based roles they might need access to a company vehicle as soon as they join instead of having to go through the process of getting a private vehicle sorted or wait for a new company car

[Countdown]

Sorry if silly question but is £300pm the tax you are paying OR the amount you are taxed on (ie you pay 40% on £300= £120)

If it's the latter, and it covers your insurance/road tax/servicing/depreciation then it seems a fairly good deal to me...

[Teebs]

Countdown said:

Sorry if silly question but is £300pm the tax you are paying OR the amount you are taxed on (ie you pay 40% on £300= £120)

If it's the latter, and it covers your insurance/road tax/servicing/depreciation then it seems a fairly good deal to me...

I would suspect it's the actual amount which is quite normal for a 40% tax payer on a nice-ish car. It's still a good deal

I pay around £330 / month for a VW Arteon, all maintanance & insurance for 30k PA. You won't buy or lease one on those terms cheaper...

[Uncle boshy]

Don’t forget to factor in car allowance if you get one as well.

At our place there is a monthly budget for the lease of the car, if you opt out, you get the cash instead ( less tax) or balance back if your car is below your budget.

[PHlL]

£300 is on the cheap side of BIK when you're not running an EV which I understand you're not.

Sadly, there isn't much you could do, unless your company voluntarily wanted to upgrade sooner for a greener fleet.

I would say make best use of the car. £300 for a fully insured and maintained car for personal use is still good.

[discodeek]

stick at it. colleague at work had this. he is field based. starts and finishes at home and does not use it for private use. he battled for ages but got there in the end.

he has his own car.

[anonymous-user]

I had this issue and luckily i managed to opt for an allowance instead of a car. I was "losing" almost £500 a month as I had fuel as well as the car. Luckily my company doesnt have any rules on what car i can drive, so I've commuted in all sorts. I now use my megane RS :-)

The company car tax rules are ridiculous. What doenst make sense, is why does the payable benefit in kind double from 20-40% tax bracket. Its the same car, same fuel, so it is unfair if you ask me to make someone pay more for the same just because they earn more.

If an allowance is possible and you dont have restrictions on what car you can drive, then see if thats an option.