Company car taxation - rules and what is better?

Jan 15, 2005 3 Replies

As I am about to change jobs where a some sort of arrangement will be agreed through a combination of car allowance and / or fuel card and / or company car.



I am trying to understand what will be better financially speaking, and also the tax implications.



These are my considerations;


- home to office travel is 80 miles return, journey to be made about once or twice per week (three to four times per week I would drive from home to client sites, or be away on UK business travel)


- other private mileage expected to be very low (the odd weekend trip to the shopping mall etc)


- business mileage from home to client sites expected to be considerable, and certainly exceed home to office private mileage


- could use public transport from home to office if this works out cheaper (although journey would be higher in stress levels..)


- I do not have a UK license, but have 10 years non UK license. Have not had a car insured in my name outside of the UK so do not have a no claims bonus to transfer


- I do not currently own a car, and suspect insurance premiums would be sky high even with car parked in garage in apartment complex (just to see I got a quote of 2400 for a 1.9 TDI Skoda Octavia that I might buy. This seems quite steep?)


- I will only stay in the UK for another few years, and don't particularly fancy taking any owned car with me, so this gives me a preference for a company car


I have sort of worked out that I should go for the company car as opposed to owning my own car and claiming the company for business mileage.



I was reading on the Inland Revenue site, and found leaflet IR172 about company car taxation. If the 'price' is say 15,000, and say the CO2 emissions dictate a price level of 15%, this gives a 'taxation charge' of



2,250.

Is this the value of the taxable benefit, or is it the actual tax that I have to pay? (apologies if I'm being stupid here but nothing would surprise me when it comes to the tax man..)



Thanks ________________ Guttorm


The price you use is the list price of the car when new, which will almost certainly be more than what you actually pay for it.

The £2,250 is their calculation of the amount of taxable income that the car represents. You will pay tax on this at 22% or 40% or whatever your tax rate is.

Jonathan Bryce wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@michelle.jbryce:

That was what I was hoping for..

So with my example the tax I would have to pay with the company car with the numbers quoted would be 2,250 x 40% (I'm a higher rate tax payer) 900. Then there would also be a liability for any petrol paid for by my employer but used privately, unless I pay this back, right?

Yes, assuming £15k is the list price for a Skoda Octavia.

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suggests it is a bit less than that. The prices in the P11D column plus the price of any extras you go for are what you are looking for. The tax for petrol is based on a fixed scale charge, and is generally best avoided.

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