Company cars experts

Wifes been offered a job which comes with Co car. Can anyone give us a
clue as to how it will affect her tax? She has to pay for fuel then claim
business mileage but insurance etc is included. She s not going to be
doing much mileage, well under 10K pa. Wage wise its more than shes on but
certainly no CEO salary. i.e. under £20K

Any help gratefully recieved as neither of us has ever had a company
vehicle before

 

I've had both company cars and car allowances. These days, you are far
better off with a car allowance, imo. The tax will depend on the vehicle and
its list price, plus emissions. Do you know what she's getting? And do you
know what mileage rate they are paying?

This is useful as a quick calculation:

http://cccfcalculator.inlandrevenue.gov.uk/CCF0.aspx

Ali

 

For that kind of mileage, I'd be asking for a cash allowance in lieu of
the car.

Reckon on the tax being around £50 / month for an average mid-sized
diesel hatch / saloon as a basic rate tax payer.

 

That doesn't seem a lot considering she won't be paying
insurance/tax/MOTs/ running costs etc[1]?

Its likely to be an Astra/Vectra

She has asked if it would be possible to use her own car and claim
mileage. She also drives an automatic (and has for some time ) and is
loathe to go back to manual. They are looking into whether there are any
autos in teh 'pool' of cars available.


[1] she has a 2.5 Grand Vitara so insurance is ~£500 a year before we
start on tax/tyres/servicing etc.

Cheers to teh guys who put links to teh calculators, it did seem to be
~£50 a month. I don't think there is a cash alternative on offer, its a
case of you can have one if you want.

 

Thing is that, if you can 'opt out' of the company scheme, and only do
what can be considered 'average' mileage, then it's quite easy to end up
with the company effectively paying her to own a car.

However, if there is no cash alternative, then taking the car isn't a
bad option, *if* it's the kind of car she's happy to drive - if it's a
base model Astra diesel or a Golf SDI then I'd think twice about paying
for the 'perk'.

 

Yup. My lot pay around 450 a month car allowance - taxable, of course, so
the net depends on your marginal rate. BUT, you can then claim mileage
against tax - 40 pence a mile for the first 10K, 25 pence a mile thereafter.
If your company pays you a mileage allowance for business miles, you deduct
that. It can be quite lucrative.

Ali

 

That said, I had a Golf SDi loan car for a week or so when the Gypmobile
was getting unbent and it was great. OK, not a performance car, but very
tractable around town, enough go for motorway speeds and decent handling
so you could have fun on country lanes if you drive it like a stolen
moped.

I often find I have more fun in that sort of car as you car drive it in
a relaxed manner if you like and make decent progress if you pay
attention. Which is why I enjoy T's 954cc Saxo. Fast cars make you lazy.

 

I've agonised over this one for ages and decided that, in my job, I'd
prefer to have the security of someone else picking up the tab for the
car and just stumping up the tax on it.

It's very different when you're doing 30-40k miles / year.

 

Even the base model TDI is hugely better.

Newport VW gave me a bloody Polo 1.2 last week.... I won't be going back
there - not when Merthyr VW give you a Golf TDI.

 

SteveH says...

So you judge a dealer on the spec of their loan cars, not the quality of
service you get?

That figures.

 

They're a VW dealer, hence they all deliver the same shite level of
service.

If I need to tool around in a courtesy car for a day or two, I'd prefer
it to be something useable.

 

SteveH says...

Wrong wrong wrong, in the same way that different Yamaha dealers deliver
varying levels of service. For someone supposedly clued up about cars
you don't know very much about this sort of thing, do you?

So the badge is more important than the service.

 

2 VW dealers tried, both have done a shit job that's not been finished
on time and needed me to go back to have other stuff fixed.

My local back-street bloke is better.

To top it all, Newport broke the passenger door handle and didn't tell
me, so it now needs to go back to them again.

That's not to mention the 2-4 weeks notice they need to give you a
courtesy car. At both dealers.

No, but having more than about 60bhp is actually quite important around
these parts.

To be honest, I don't give a **** about the service as such - so long as
the car goes in on time, gets the service indicator reset and comes back
to me on time.

 

Um, I was doing *over* 40K miles a year up until a year ago - and as a sales
manager, my car was totally essential to the job. I just made sure I bought
something decently reliable, with a proper warranty - and from a dealer that
gave me a courtesy car as a matter of course. It's a very substantial
financial difference if you do that kind of mileage. My tax rebates were
running nicely into four figures, and that's over and above the car
allowance. And the fact that I always made a profit on the mileage. (No,
didn't fiddle the numbers.)

Ali

Ali

 

I think the balance is tipped if you're a higher rate tax payer, though.

For me, I'm happy to take the tax hit to avoid all the hassles of buying
and running my own car.

 

Yes, my marginal rate is 40 percent. I've not honestly found it a hassle to
buy and run my own - I was concerned about it the first time I did, so went
for a personal lease. Damn rip off, that is. The second time, I bought new.

Ali

 

It's an interesting one. Just doing some very quick maths suggests that
I'd need to find not far off 600 quid / month to buy my car. Obviously,
with the next one it wouldn't be so bad, because of the equity I'd have
in the one I'd bought.

However, I can't see many people rushing to give me a £19k unsecured
loan.

Opt-out rules mean that the oldest car I could even consider buying
would be a year old - and buying used can mean lots of warranty issues
if you need to claim.

I may have another look when my current car is due to be replaced,
though.

 

"Twice the fun, half the speed."

 

Not wishing to rain on your SteveH parade, but how do you get that from
that sentence? Even taking his earlier posts into consideration, the
"badge" was the same (VW polo, VW golf) but the car was larger, with
more go and to him was more useful. I don't get what you're striving at.

 

Christofire says...

It's a one day courtesy car.

When my Golf was in the bodyshop I was loaned a Corsa 1.2 Twinport. I
drove it to Penith and back in a day and tbh I was just grateful that I
wasn't stuck on a train or coach. I've had Lupo courtesy cars, Polos,
Golf Plus Tdi and others, it's just a fucking car at the end of the day.

If Steve takes his "all VW dealers are shite" attitude into the sevice
desk it's hardly surprising that they dump him in an inferior car. Maybe
if Steve planned his week a bit better he'd have been a bit closer to
home and not in need of a big car with lots of go when his own was being
serviced. I personally couldn't give a **** what courtesy car I drive,
I'm not that much up my own arse about it.