As I understand it;
Maximum value limited to £1000
Payment is made by way of salary sacrafice, ie from gross salary thereby saving tax and NI contributions on the payments.
Are the payments deducted monthly?
If so is there a set period over which the payments are taken.
At what point do you own the cycle, I assume once the final payment has been made?

Our employers are considering offering the scheme but i'm sure there interpretation is different from how the scheme was intended.

Thanks Guys

yes.

yes monthly.

you pay a 13th payment to take ownership of the bike (by checque following a request for payment from CS)

you own it after this 13th payment.

easy

Not strictly true that the maximum amount is £1000. This is what most employers stick to though as above that they have to have a licence to act as a credit provider.

tracknicko

CS ??

So 13 monthly payments yes?

Ta

cycle scheme!

no 12 monthly payments

then one letter in the post asking for a cheque for (roughly) another months worth.

Thanks tracknicko much simpler understanding now.

no worries mate.

quite a few folks try and fiddle it or whine for months about pushing the 1k barrier but it seems pretty effing simple to me.

pick a bike that is less than 1k (say 999) (can be discounted – say from 1300) pay 12 monthly payments adding up to around £550.

then pay 50 quid by cheque after the 12 months have passed.

thus 1300 squid bike for about 600

easy. and good. do it!

The fundamental concept, is that bikes are tax free for companies to buy & then make them a financially actractive mode of green transport for employees by letting them pay for them out of their salary before deductions & spread the cost.

I don't think the gov realised how many people like us there would be trying to use it to get a cheap bike or bits.

Some shops will do you a bike worth more than £1k on the standard scheme (without the employer needing a credit licsence), my local one does this by declaring a £1k value and then selling you a service pack of 1-2-300 on top of the price for you to pay directly. but There's a limit to how far this will go.

Some places run the scheme over 18 or 24 months (I think this is the limit time wise).

Its not necessarily an extra "13th monthly" payment at the end to own the bike. Its supposed to be a payment relating to the market value of the used bike. This is advised to be 3 to 5% of the bike's cost new. Some places do make it the value of an extra month's payment.

You don't have to make that payment and can carry on using the bike without owning it. It was suggested to me by the cyclescheme rep that if I used it for another 12months after I'd finished paying then the final payment for owership could be as little as nothing at all.

If you choose a discounted / sale bike then some bike shops won't give you the full discounted price, because cyclescheme take 10percent of the sale value. The full price covers this, with sale prices there is less margin for this to come out of.

does anyone know if company directors can take advantage of the scheme? i did ask the accountant but he banged on about the risk of cycling to work…****

yes i beleive they can.

Thanks guys for all your help.

My understanding from all this is that from an employers perspective, if you do the deal on a monthly deduction the employer has to shell out the money and then spend months recovering the expenditure piece meal!

If you had say ten people take up the scheme then this could be a considered a considerable sum of money out of the companies cash flow for many months.

I do believe that my employer is considering avoiding this long term expenditure by paying for the bike and then in the same month recovering via the salary exchange the total due, say £1000 less tax and NI say around £600 that way not having sums of money taken out of the companies cash flow. For small companies quite understandable really.

A point about shop discounts.

I bought my tranceX2 in 2008. Its rrp was £1500. The shop's cash discount price was £1300. To buy with a £1000 cyclescheme voucher, the shopkeeper agreed a price of £1350, so I paid him £350 in cash + the voucher to take away the bike.

I am in the process of going through the cyclescheme. My employer had one running with Halfords version but they didn't have any bikes I liked! Then he kindly set up the cyclescheme one for me. Just waiting for the voucher.
I am actually getting a frame only with it and the cost of that has been reduced from £1948 to £1099. As it has been so heavily discounted and I want to pay by voucher, I will actually have to pay £200 cash instead of the extra £100. Doesn't really matter as the end price will be considerably less than £1100 anyway!

I am actually getting a frame only with it

can you do that? I thought it had to be complete bikes only.

I thought so to but there's ways round it! Its on the quote as an Intense 6.6 and a price. Nothing else. They said they have done it before and got it through. Its just a bit awkward if you left your employment and they asked for the bike back and all you gave them was a frame!

Wonder if I could set up a scheme for my own business (self employed). Oh, wait, I work from home dammit.

does anyone know if company directors can take advantage of the scheme?

Answer to company directors question above … yes you can.

does anyone know if company directors can take advantage of the scheme? i did ask the accountant but he banged on about the risk of cycling to work…****

Wonder if I could set up a scheme for my own business (self employed). Oh, wait, I work from home dammit.

As a company director you don't need to get involved in the CTW scheme. Just let the company buy the bike, and then allow 'any' director/employee to use it. Depreciate/Write-off after 12 months. Just like other small assets, except you don't need a business benefit. No tax, no employee and/or employer NI etc – and save corp. tax too.

Talk with your accountant – or BikeTreks in The Lakes.

My LBS tell me that the money they get from the scheme is about 10% less than the value of the bike so they don't discount on Cyclescheme bikes.

I have a Roubaix I'm buying on the scheme. My employer will allow up to £600 through the scheme but, if you want a bike that costs more, you can fund the rest yourself. The Roubaix was £1468 so I funded £868 and I'm paying for the rest pre-tax at £50 per month. I'm effectively paying £30 to £35 per month. I'll have to pay 5% of the value of the loan at the end to own it, so £30. Hence, my £1468 bike's costing me around £1280.

If I'd bought a £600 bike, the saving would be roughly a quarter to a third.

After 4 years of trying to get scheme implemented at the ftse 100 company I work for … it finally happen today! We have a cycle to work scheme in place ! Using cyclescheme as the provider. Cyclescheme has lots of useful faq on their website.

Simple you cycle then work 💡

Been a number of threads on this (use search)

One thing to note, I'm almost certain that the small print says you are supposed to have a full working bike so if your getting just a frame I'd keep it on the quiet.

Also been alot of discussion over 'topping up' and the rules here seem to be flexed quite alot. I think you should be asking your company whether they allow it rather than the bike shop (who want the sale)

My company don't allow it, whereas my LBS would have been happy to oblige.

I also did not get anywhere the savings quoted, in fact after the 5% 13th payment I paid in the region of £800 for a £1000 bike. I was probably in a really unlucky salary band though. The new calculator on the C2W website states I will get a much better saving should I choose to do it again this year.

My company's just launched this, so, the question is, what do I get?

At present I have:

Bodged up old MTB based pub bike
456
GF Rig s/s 29r
CX Bike

and a roadie frame and pretty much enough bits to build it up.

So what would I get for £1000 that would fit in there? Full sus is no use that price. Something Alfine'd maybe?

Re savings, depends on whether employer passes on their vat saving or not, also the higher your own tax bracket the more you save……

I'm in a similar position to IHN my company finally announced they'd be taking part in the scheme today, but what to get, I've already got three (don't ask) Whyte 19's a Whyte E-5, a Marin Mill Valley and a Genesis Flyer, do I need any more bikes?

After 4 years of trying to get scheme implemented at the ftse 100 company I work for … it finally happen today

hmm me too. we work for the same company perhaps? great news anyway, short timeframe though, only open from dec 2 to jan 8th!!

incidentally what commuter bike? fancy a cotic roadrat. anyone have anything similarin mind – need inspiration!

Ah-ha, same offer at my place of work came through today……

Shame it's capped at 1k though, I could spend more than that on a new set of rims!

sounds like we have a few people who all work for the same large org all celebrating!

1k aint bad, considering you could get loads of kit and a cheap bike on it. tink i'm gonna get me a new gore jacket and some good lights.

@ megastream, i liaise with folks in your neck of the woods quite a lot and given your location and profession makes me wonder if we def work for same co – ping me a mail if u like.

I'm not a stalker btw 🙂

IHN 'donate' your luck to a riding pal whose employer has not seen the light. 😆