After applying for a new bike to work, advising my LBS I need something to get me to the stations/work – I got this lovely email from HR. Essentially I cannot apply concurrent years – even though I have done this before. Anyone else come across and solved this problem? (company names removed)

“We have been advised by the Bikes for Work provider, XXXX, that under HMRC rules for Bikes for Work schemes, you would not unfortunately be able to join the scheme this year.

I have asked YY’s internal Tax team to verify this and they have confirmed that under HMRC rules you would not be able to take a second bike, whilst the first hire agreement is still active from last year, if the sum of the two bike certificates (last year’s and this year’s) breaches £1000.

As such we have been asked to remove the bike selection from your 01 January 14 XXXXX scheme.

Please accept our apologies that this was not made clear on XXXXX. We will now raise this with the Reward team, ready for next year’s annual enrolment, to try to ensure greater clarity on scheme rules.

Basically, they can’t give you more than £1000 worth of loans at any one time as they would need to register as a lender to do that.

Wait until the first hire agreement expires? It reads like you can’t be on 2 schemes at the same time, which is fair I guess.

You can do one year after another, but you can’t have two schemes (if over £1000 total) running at the same time. I’m not sure on whether or not there’s been a change but that certainly doesn’t surprise me, seems pretty reasonable tbh.

What’s wrong with your other <12 month old C2W bike that means you can’t ride to work on it?

Maybe it’s a £1500 trail bike?

Used to annoy me that my old employer stuck rigidly to the £1000 limit due to the statutory requirements for lending over £1000, what with them being a bank and all.

Quite common. Used to be every three years at our place. Now limited to two years. Makes sense really. Why would you “need” a new bike for work each year is hard to justify to HMRC.

Doesn’t seem unreasonable really, other than as tax loopholes go they seem to spend a lot of time reducing the benefits for a pretty small amount available to a lot of people, rather than go after bigger fish.

edit: thats if it is tax rules rather than company policy.

We used to have the £1000 limit, but I think the lbs who supplied most of the bikes would go over that and invoice it as ‘accessories’, and accept some cash from employee to make the deal work.

I’ve just thought of a cracking way to get myself that el mariachi ss I want………..

you would not be able to take a second bike, whilst the first hire agreement is still active from last year

Sounds reasonable. You’d have to end the first agreement, surely?

“What’s wrong with your other <12 month old C2W bike that means you can’t ride to work on it?” = answer – does meet my need for something shiny.

Though could of done with my work figuring this out before they said I could do it on my annual flexible package.

If it’s done under your annual flex scheme surely it only runs for 12 months by definition or are they extending the ownership to avoid the final transfer fee?

Why would you “need” a new bike for work each year is hard to justify to HMRC

I can see your point but I’m sure execs would be up in arms if you told them they didn’t need a new company car every year 🙂

Did you defer the agreement and effectively hire it for 3 years rather than paying the final figure?

But they only have one car at a time.

The year old £1000 bike is only worth about £83 so must be s**t and obviously need replacing (or at least some carbon wheels)!