Bike to Work scheme – Is it every checked?

Self employed already dodge paying much of the tax that I have no option on.  So a B2Wbike is a little bit of rebalancing the unfair bias of the tax system against middle earning employees.

And the TT bike I got on B2W means I can get to the office quite a bit faster than on the Brompton, therefore being able to do even more work in the time available. As one of what seems to only 3 people in the country making a positive difference to the country’s trade balance, I should really be given the thing for free.

To the OP – no. Never.

It saves lots of cash, gets the bike shop more trade and gets you riding more.

And since they expanded it to literally anything in a bike shop, not just a full bike, they can’t have any intention or means to ever check.

but genuinely, the only reason I can afford a second had EV is because someone took the depreciation hit first.  I’m not sure I care that it was done via salary sacrifice.

its interesting- that is certainly the high level economics of it… BUT I think often the tax breaks/ grants/ subsidies introduced by well meaning governments actually result in price inflation, hurting everyone except those who set up the admin schemes!   We don’t have salary sacrifice for EVs so I was free to shop the entire market.  I know someone in the NHS who does get the benefit but had a much restricted choice of deals… from what I could see he was paying about 20% over, which is still attractive if you get 40% tax break but perhaps not quite what the architects had in mind!

bike 2 work is similar – less choice, less competition, “but you are saving money still”…

Self employed already dodge paying much of the tax that I have no option on.

Personally, I don’t ‘dodge’ anything – all my accounts and transactions are electronic.

But if there’s a scheme in place that goes some way to compensate for the lack of paid holidays, sick pay, company pension etc, I’m possibly going to use it….

*Gets up at 4am to go and do some self employed stuff and waits for thread to spiral off into an abyss

What really grips my shit is that if your employer says no we aren’t doing it you are not doing it. Should be available to all.

compensate for the lack of paid holidays, sick pay, company pension etc,

You should charge the appropriate fees to your customers to compensate for those things, not evade tax. And if you can’t charge enough, then either move jobs or suck it up . You can’t justify it that way, sorry. Request denied.

Also, you’re not getting any sympathy when you’re starting threads about buying expensive new cars. Don’t make out how hard done by you are. I thought the youth of today were meant to be the entitled ones?

You should charge the appropriate fees to your customers to compensate for those things, not evade tax. And if you can’t charge enough, then either move jobs or suck it up . You can’t justify it that way, sorry. Request denied.

Also, you’re not getting any sympathy when you’re starting threads about buying expensive new cars. Don’t make out how hard done by you are. I thought the youth of today were meant to be the entitled ones?

Here he is, like the neighbours Jack Russell snapping round my ankles.

I was neither asking for sympathy, not expecting any on the socialist workers forum.

I missed the bit where I was advocating  tax evasion too…

Grinds my gears when people piss and moan about people taking advantage of a scenario made available to them, just because they can’t. Probably sanctimoniously too, because they would too if they could

Ah, a ‘tHe sElf eMpLoyEd pAy nO tAx’ thread – it’s been a while 😉

HMRC are the single largest benefactor of my company being in business. They receive more than any single other entity – including me and my co-owner.

I do still get to use a Bike to Work scheme though as a ‘perk’ of being an employee on the books. Which means that I get taxed via PAYE with NI deductions taken off just like everybody else. And twice a year via my Self Assessment.

I pay tax. All of our employees pay tax. Our company pays a quarterly VAT bill, monthly P32 and annual corporation tax bills. But please, don’t let that stop the same tedious bleating about someone being able to save a few quid on a new bike.

To answer the original question – not in our experience. We’ve had a few staff buying bikes via various schemes (I don’t mind signing up for whatever scheme the bike shop they want to use works with) and generally the ‘Scheme’ just deals with everything.

Green Commute Initiative is the best one I’ve found so far – by far the easiest to deal with, lowest fees for the bike shops and flexible repayment terms. If it’s an option for you, it’s definitely the one I’d recommend.

Lets not forget that all of these sacrifices impact pension contributions and can end up being way more costly over time.

If you get a new bike every few years then your average earnings is coming down and so will your pension contributions. Could potentially add up to hundreds a month when you are old and could do with the cash.

But please, don’t let that stop the same tedious bleating about someone being able to save a few quid on a new bike.

I haven’t seen that happen in this thread. It’s brilliant that people start cycling and save a bit of money as a reward. But again, the way the idea has been implemented is unfair, as patiently explained by several posters.

As for paying tax, including Corporation Tax, you might not be the only one, incredibly enough. But not everyone feels the need to share that irrelevant piece of information about themsleves.

Self employed already dodge paying much of the tax that I have no option on.

Wow, this turned out strange. A simple “No, no-one checks and everyone accepts it was a good idea which has just become a nice tax perk for the rich” would have sufficed.

It’s STW, it’s the only way it could have turned out, i sometimes think that this place is where a few dyslexic Socialist Workers Party end up 🤣

“Lets not forget that all of these sacrifices impact pension contributions and can end up being way more costly over time.”

How so? My company and everyone I knows company work out the company pension contributions based on your pre-salary sacrifice salary. The only way it might impact it is if an employee who wants to get under a tax threshold (either 80k for child benefit, or 100k for tax free child care / 30 hours free childcare being the obvious places) does that by getting a nice bike, instead of bunging the excess into their pension.

“It’s STW, it’s the only way it could have turned out, i sometimes think that this place is where a few dyslexic Socialist Workers Party end up 🤣”

It’d be a dull place if the thread had one concise answer.

@Ewan

My company and everyone I knows company work out the company pension contributions based on your pre-salary sacrifice salary

Are you sure about that?

AFAIK salary sacrifice is just that, you lose a bit of your salary, and the attendant benefits thereof.

Salary deductions occur after pension contributions, but prior to tax.

AFAIK salary sacrifice is just that, you lose a bit of your salary, and the attendant benefits thereof.

Most companies I’m aware of calculate benefits from the notional salary, and they’re unaffected by any salary sacrifice schemes.

Exactly

Apologies, just checked, both are true, it is at the employers discretion.

Wait until they hear that cyclists who buy a Bike To Work bike DOnT PAy RoAD TaX either

Employers benefit from the reduction in employers NI, so are unlikely to want to penalise people for using salary sacrifice schemes.