so just landed new job after redundancy at xmas big relief
been offered co van peugeot with fuel card
or car allowance with fuel card
dont really want logod van and expecting highish miles construction engineer i found small vans uncomfortable (doblo and kangoo)
any ideas on allowance ££ to ask for?
I know all options will be taxed and car will take a hammering ( mondeo 2.0 45 k fsh) not had it long so getting rid now will lose a lot bad timing i spose.
thanks

I would work out what a similar car to the van would cost on lease (for the appropriate number of miles), throw in costs for tyres, insurance etc, work out what that would be after tax and ask for that. If its high miles (if fuel cards are getting banded about I expect it will be), those costs will be high – a boggo mondeo appears to be £450 on lease (25,000 miles).

its also worth considering that often allowances have conditions attached – if you’re driving for work this might be under 4 years old and under 50,000 miles – worth checking before you make a decision

Company vehicle vs allowance? The former every time, hassle-free motoring. Fuel card, tear their arms off.

Your family circumstances will be a big factor. A van will probably have two seats – ideal for a single bloke into their biking but pretty useless for a family guy.

Is there no option to get a company car instead of a van?

I’ve been in and out of car allowance V Company car sceanrios all my life.

I’ve had the £650pcm allowance then 45p/25ppm. The £650 is taxable and the 45p/25pm isn’t. very generous scheme, but very rare.

last job, I had a company car, a £40k Audi A4 Black Edition which they sell to lease companies for £30k, but i’m taxed on the full RRP for every year I have it. £400 pcm extra tax, but was worth it for the lack of financial liability to me. When they made me redundant I handed it back.

Now, I’m in a new job and it’s car allowance only. £600pcm which is taxed then 15p per mile which is shit. Like a lot of companies now, they want you to just about cover your fuel and then claim the difference at the end of the tax year on a P87. I’m covering England and Wales and before long, i’ll be all over the country putting moon miles on my car (a 65 plate £13k E Class E220d) which after three years will be worth not much.

At the end of the tax year I’ll be lucky if I get £1500 k back in tax which probably won’t cover any bills I’ve accrued for the 0k i’ll have done. This irk’s me because they expect me to foot the cost of motoring and wait 12 months for the government to refund me a percentage of the difference from 15ppm to the 45ppm/25ppm.

If they bin me off next month I’m stuck with a car that I probably won’t need, because i’d guarantee the next one will have a car.

Find out what van it is and test drive one. Vans have moved on a lot, no tax to pay if you don’t have private use. Just park it up at the end of the day. Its bound to be tracked to prove lack of personal usage.
I have my own car as not having commuting miles makes car ownership way cheaper, actually if I didn’t own one it’d be cheap enough to hire occasionally.

I’d love to be able to ditch the “leased from the company” car that costs me money for a van that didn’t.

For the amount of personal use I get from it, it’s really not worth the cost.

Unfortunately, vans are the wrong image for engineers, they say. Nothing to do with the fact they part own a leading company and make a tidy profit out of this scheme.

I have a liveried van with fuel card and no costs/tax. Conditions are it’s only for work use and commuting where your place of work is not fixed i.e workplace is not fixed.

It does mean I cannot have any personal use so no good as a biking van…I can also park it at a fixed work address and commute under my own steam, and then use it for onward travel if I was worried about bringing down the neighborhood with a scummy liveried van 😉

If as above it cost £400 per month intax and you were happy with that I would just keep the van and use the 400 per month on a car of my choice, that used the same fuel as the van. Adjust for whatever level of tax you’re happy with.

How about a double cab pickup instead of a van as an option for your employer? Comfy to drive and relatively low tax to pay for you.

Really didn’t understand most of @TheBrick reasoning, apart from

…a car of my choice, that used the same fuel as the van.

Theft from your employer. Good plan 👌

If there was no stipulation on what car you had (age and mileage) then I’d be biting off their hands for car allowance with fuel card.

A van you cannot use for personal reasons seems like a nightmare – you’ll need to store it, as well as buying, insuring and taxing another vehicle for your personal use.

If as above it cost £400 per month intax and you were happy with that I would just keep the van and use the 400 per month on a car of my choice, that used the same fuel as the van. Adjust for whatever level of tax you’re happy with.

Theft from your employer. Good plan 👌

Its not theft, he’s saying if a car would get you a heavy tax bill, just buy yourself a car with the tax ‘savings’ you make and use their van for work duties. Thats exactly what I would do in the same circumstance. In the case of the OP this is basically the choice he has, but in this case there’s no tax saving, but additional cash. The balance of the decision will always be whats the amount of cash after tax?

A car with a ton of miles is still worth more than no car at all so it depends on whether the cash allowance after tax is enough to finance the purchase of a car & service it over the course of the allowance duration. If it is, then its almost certainly the better option.

Its not theft,

Why would the car need to be the same fuel as the van if you weren’t planning to use the company card for both? That was the meaning I took from it anyway.

Your balance of tax vs. car spend was much clearer though. 👍

Now, I’m in a new job and it’s car allowance only. £600pcm which is taxed then 15p per mile which is shit. Like a lot of companies now, they want you to just about cover your fuel and then claim the difference at the end of the tax year on a P87. I’m covering England and Wales and before long, i’ll be all over the country putting moon miles on my car (a 65 plate £13k E Class E220d) which after three years will be worth not much.

At the end of the tax year I’ll be lucky if I get £1500 k back in tax which probably won’t cover any bills I’ve accrued for the 0k i’ll have done. This irk’s me because they expect me to foot the cost of motoring and wait 12 months for the government to refund me a percentage of the difference from 15ppm to the 45ppm/25ppm.

Surely in that scenario they’ve paid you £600/month to cover depreciation and other costs and 15p/mile for fuel? And then you get a £1500 rebate from HMRC. Sounds fairly fair.

Its not theft, he’s saying if a car would get you a heavy tax bill, just buy yourself a car with the tax ‘savings’ you make and use their van for work duties

That’s not what he’s saying…..

Either that or he’s worried about misfueling his personal car…..

Most fuel cards I’ve used you have to give the reg at fill and often the milage…..or fill out a milage report monthly that has to tally in with the cars milage.

I took an allowance when the opportunity came up and used it to fund a low rate loan for 3 year old Golf GTD with 13k miles – good mile muncher in eco mode, 60mpg, space in the back for 2 small kids when we all go out, fun on backroads if you feel the urge to get a wriggle on.

The BIC is £336 on the equivalent model so that’s me £336/ month better off for taking on the risk of personal ownership. My allowance after tax covers the monthly loan repayments, insurance, annual service & MOT with a bit left over for incidentals. I get 45p/25p mileage for business use although there’s been bugger all of that recently but in the 1st year I was well up on the combined allowance + miles alone (not taking into account depreciation).

Another year on and the car is worth approximately £3-4k more than the balance of the loan. I did it this way to save money on BIK and and have the freedom to sell or change cars whenever I want and not be tied to a personal lease or PCP deal.

Touch wood, it’s been hassle free so far. I’d only consider going back to a company car for something electric as the BIK is negligible. If an ex VAT business lease works out cost neutral against the allowance or thereabouts then it’s a fairly easy conversation to have.

Ask for £1000/month allowance, they can only say no 🙂

I’m sure the allowance will be banded to your role, so I wouldn’t go getting your hopes up on getting a big juicy amount (relative to a small van lease cost). There are swings and roundabouts to both methods, but personally up until recently I would have said if they don’t have any stringent ‘rules’ on tight vehicle age, mileage, etc an allowance would be my choice, as there is a bit more freedom of choice. However with electric vehicles now, in my circumstances its massively swinging back into favour of a company vehicle.

Currently I have a company car that’s due to go back in the next few months. It has a P11D value of ~£55k, and as my company is nice it’s fully expensed – sadly that means it costs me about a grand a month, which makes it sting a little, but in reality, probably not that different to the actual costs of owning the same car.

It’s due to be replaced with a Model S & the numbers are mad. It’s P11D is over double (£111k!) yet it’s going to cost me about £40 a month.

So for the next 4 years I have it, that difference is going to be put away, because you can sure as hell count on as soon as we get close to a tipping point, we’re never going to get away with that little tax again.

and as my company is nice it’s fully expensed

are you hiring?

If you’re doing lots of miles then their vehicle surely? Any problems that stop you getting to site they have to sort/can’t moan at you for not making it there. If it’s your car you’ll be the one with the headache when the cars playing up.

Surely in that scenario they’ve paid you £600/month to cover depreciation and other costs and 15p/mile for fuel? And then you get a £1500 rebate from HMRC. Sounds fairly fair.

HMRC will allow the company to pay you 45ppm for the first 10k miles and then 25ppm after that. All tax free. If they ‘underpay’ then you’re only getting the tax back AND the company is expecting all of us to subsidise it. I work for an equivalent scummy company.

Thanks for all replies plenty of food for thought !! not keen on having van sat on drive nor keen on a pcp deal but will look at equivalent car on a pcp for a monthly rate

If they ‘underpay’ then you’re only getting the tax back AND the company is expecting all of us to subsidise it

thats not really the case if they’re separately paying a car allowance though – the company is paying for the base costs of the car as the allowance, then petrol (which is the most variable element of running a car for 10 miles vs 10,000) is covered by claiming milage at a rate that roughly reflects the cost. 10p/mile should cover fuel costs in something fairly economical, 15p/mile is enough for most modern cars.

45ppm is a casual user type allowance, I’m not sure many places do car allowance AND that rate as a mileage payment.

45ppm is a casual user type allowance, I’m not sure many places do car allowance AND that rate as a mileage payment.

yes, intended to be a catch all amount for fuel, tyres, depreciation and servicing etc. used while using it for work not its total use.*

Hence the drop off after 10k, implication being that after that point you’ve depreciated it to nowhere, you’ll be servicing it twice yearly, and the extra should just cover your fuel.

*about 1/4 to 1/3 of my miles are business, I reckon 45p just about gives me free motoring; with an 8 yearold hatchback. A new car on a lease, no chance.