My brother’s employer is setting up a Cycle to Work scheme which is great of course but they seem to overly zealous in how they are doing it. They want monthly usage reports to verify the 50% commuting use and have complex procedures for ‘what-ifs’, for example if you move to another office where you can’t cycle commute or if you go on maternity leave before you have completed the repayments. I know they probably have some responsibility to HMRC to make sure that the tax break is properly applied but it all seems a bit over the top. What experiences have you had of monitoring during the loan period ?

our hr (and this seems to be the norm) couldn’t care less and don’t do any checks at all. Fwiw every b2w bike i’ve had has been used to commute at least a few times.

How will they possibly monitor usage? Checking people if they arrive in work on a bike?

Remember, you can use it to cycle part of the way i.e. to a train station. Just say that if anyone asked!

Cycle to Work rules mean the bike should mainly be used for riding back and forth to work. However, there is no requirement to keep records or logs of mileage and, in fact, HMRC guidelines state that:

* The employees must use the bicycle or equipment mainly for qualifying journeys. ‘Qualifying journeys’ means the same as for the works bus exemption (see EIM21850). Other use of the bicycle, for instance pleasure use or use by members of the employee’s family, will not disqualify the exemption, provided that the other use is not the main use of the bicycle.
* Employees are not expected to keep detailed records of time spent cycling or miles travelled for the purpose of this ‘main use’ test. Accept that the test is satisfied unless there is clear evidence to suggest that less than half of the use of the bicycle or equipment is on qualifying journeys.
* If it is clear that there is substantial use of the bicycle for qualifying journeys, do not make special enquiries about the extent of any other use.

i think that hopster has the sensible rules right there

Fwiw every b2w bike i’ve had has been used to commute at least a few times.

LOLLERSKATES!!! save it for the Judge 😡

Thanks for the comments, I’ll pass them on to my brother

It was a bit freaky when it snowed this year, all of a sudden the bike parking was completely full of C2W £1000 mountain bikes that had never been commuted on before