Haven’t been charged at all for a bike I received last May.

Now, I’m not a c2w expert but I did get a LOC, and send it to the supplier (an approved Halfords retailer) so I’m assuming the fault lies with my payroll department, or less likely it could be Halfords not letting them know I had received a bike, or even the supplier of the bike not informing Halfords.  But someone somewhere hasn’t got their money

What would STW do, keep quiet or try and order another bike?

depends how much you like your job.

The only person for whom it’s possible to be out of pocket is your employer.

Bit weird you didn’t fess up in June/July when you realised.

if it were me I’d be straight onto payroll, claim you never bother to check your payslip but you’ve just realised they haven’t been making the deductions from your salary.

Your employer would have paid Halfords otherwise the LOC wouldn’t have been issued so you definitely owe them money. If the shop didn’t redeem the LOC then they wouldn’t have been paid so I’m sure they’d have checked that they had been.

Clearly the answer is to speak to your payroll people unless you’re happy stealing from them and tax evasion 🙂

………..Bit weird you didn’t fess up in June/July when you realised……..

Only found out this week. We don’t get pay slips and my monthly pay doesn’t vary from month to month so as long as it keeps going in I don’t really need to worry about the detail

……..Clearly the answer is to speak to your payroll people unless you’re happy stealing from them and tax evasion………

turns out I’m remarkably relaxed about it.

extra edit to day this quoting business is up the left, what’s the workaround?

I don’t know if I’d be up all night agonising over some unintentional theft or ‘tax evasion’, but what you could probably do without is PR finding out 2 years later and wanting all your contributions in one hit.

And no, you won’t be sacked for not throwing yourself at their mercy the month after you got your bike, it’s an honest mistake and if you didn’t notice, you didn’t notice.

If you can afford to be “surprised”, I’d leave it until someone notices/you leave the job/ apply for another C2W in two years time etc. Hardly a disciplinary offence is it?

Fair enough but,  either way, neither of your suggested options is the right one, you really ought to tell them

Clearly the answer is to speak to your payroll people unless you’re happy stealing from them and tax evasion

I’d love to know you the op can be accused of tax evasion – what’s he evading?

Unless of course you don’t actually use the bike for cycling to work? 🙂

I’d keep quiet, the damage is done, won’t make any difference if they find out now or in two years time.

Knowing how crap my payroll department is, they’ll probably try and take it back in one go.

I’d love to know you the op can be accused of tax evasion – what’s he evading?

He’s effectively been given a free bike by his employer which will incur a tax liability.

Your biggest ethical dilemma is whether to continue pretending you didn’t know, long after admitting that you did, on a public forum.

Just go to your employers and sort it out, then you can ride your bike to work, with a clear conscience.

You don’t get payslips. Is that legal!

Keep schtum about it.

Your employers mistake, tough. Their problem, not yours.

I don’t get pays slips either…. It’s all done online and I never bother to look as the system is horrid.

If you don’t tell them soon it will be in a different tax year by the time you start paying. Does that matter to them…or you?

If you work for a large company I’d see it as a bonus for them giving you a shite below inflation pay rise/cut every year 🙂

Your work has essentially now given you a bike – that’s a benefit in kind and is taxable.

But I believe C2W payments are pre-tax and therefore part of the benefit of the scheme is the tax you save – currently you’re not getting the deduction so are actually paying more in tax (but you do have a free bike).

Not sure what the net of the two are though.

I’m basically about £30 a month better off as a result of their mistake.  Financially  I’m not bothered either way, but was interested as to how other people would see it, seems like a few are more worked up about it than I would ever be.

The main thing stopping me bringing to their  attention is I know they will make a mess of ‘fixing’ the problem. So it will actually turn out to be a right PITA

I know your pain, I’m still sorting out the mess a previous employer created!! Gonna be April 2019 before I can get my tax code back to what it should be.

In theory this one’s just a case of them not taking the deductions so it’s a bit of a simpler fix – i.e take them before the end of the tax year and there’s no harm done.

If you think they’ll make a pig’s ear of fixing the problem, chances are it’ll be a bigger pig’s ear the longer you leave it before you tell them. And if you never tell them then they might get properly narky about it when they eventually find out.

If it was me, I’d tell them straight away. It’ll only get worse.

I wouldn’t worry too much as it’s their mistake. If they do catch up with the bike and you think they will make a mess of it just offer to give them the hire bike back.

From a purely selfish point of view, if you left work now and this came to light it would cause a right awful mess.

When you leave an employer any outstanding C2W payments become due from your net pay I believe. This could leave you more out of pocket than you imagined.

….And if you never tell them then they might get properly narky about it when they eventually find out…….

nah, there’s no chance of that. There will be no comeback apart from whatever financial disaster they randomly impose upon me. This is the same payroll department that told the tax office I earned £22,000 in November alone

As long as you’ve got the funds/liquidity to be able to cover them taking the whole lot back in one go if/when they find out, I’d just keep quiet about it.. then play dumb + be co-operative if they do pick it up.

And as for those up there calling you out for stealing/tax evasion… really…

Me, I’d say nothing.

Just be prepared to fork out if they find out they’ve made a mistake.

Had similar to this although the time period was shorter and I hadn’t realised, bought the bike in September and had no deductions, HR approached me this week very apologetically and asked would I prefer double contributions for 6 months or start now and pay for a year. Had I noticed I would of course have fessed uo

Colleague of mine had a cock up with his company lease car payments when he was on parental leave.

They didn’t take anything for the first 8 months of the financial year. Then noticed and announced that they were going to make up the difference in the last 3 periods. (so about 1200 quid a month for 3 months. Had to be corrected by the end of the FY for some accounting reason)

When they tried to add it to the payroll the union stepped in and pointed out that the maximum they were allowed to take off payslip without agreement from both the union and the employee was 5% of net.

The Union told payroll to suck it up. So they did, he only paid about 35% of the lease that year.

Happy colleague.

Now i have to work out how to get them to do it for me.

Going on parental leave again isn’t happening.

I’d keep quiet. If the difference is only £30 a month you could argue you didn’t notice. Like you i dont get paper pay slips either so rarely check my pay.

My payroll dept did the same for 4 months. Once they realized they told me they were going to take everything owed to date out of the same pay! This was going to be a net £200 deduction.

This was the December pay so I suggested that the money owed – due to their fault – was paid back progressively over the remaining months of the agreement. But the key point for them was that the agreement concluded in the same month as planned in the original agreement.

Your payroll dept will work it out sooner or later and they will want the deal to conclude at the same time as planned. £30 a month is fine, but I don’t suppose you fancy explaining or affording over £200 being docked in one go, I certainly didn’t! I imagine they’ll work it out once they start calculating your annual P60 which will be soon.

It’s not your fault but they will work it out and you will still get the same tax deductions, but the longer it’s left the fewer months you’ll have to pay it all back.