Company Car advice needed

[GreenTom]

Afternoon Fellow Greens

I currently have a company car and fuel benefit and wondering whether to go for a car allowance, the total of the benefits amount to £18k in taxable terms.

I do around 25k a year roughly 60/40 personal/business

What is everyones experiences?

TIA!

 

[IJN]

I got rid of my company car benefit about 15 years after I first received it, I then went on the car allowance and it was far more beneficial from a tax perspective.

I drove about 65,000 to 69,000 miles per annum, and I had to change cars every 16/18 months are so, but I never once felt like going back into the system again.

Mind you, I've been retired seven years now so it might all have changed.

Buying a car every 16/18 months was great fun though.

 

[Frank Butcher]

It depends on what constitutes your ‘commute’. For me (80/20 biz/pers on 40k per annum) when I lived in Saltash, my office was in Feltham so my commute was effectively 200 miles.

The other huge benefit of having a company car was the convenience - service, tyres, windscreen etc.. I’m retired now and things may have changed but there were ways to set where your office actually is (based on the percentage of time spent, e.g. WFH) so taking proper tax advice might be advisable. I do also recall a website called cashorcar.com which would tell you what was best for you. Not sure if it still exists but it always put me on the borderline so I sided with convenience.

Car allowance is particularly good if you can also expense alternative forms of travel, especially if you’re close to your base office.

Edited to add cashorcar seems to have gone, but comcar.co.uk is there which does a similar thing - at your own risk of course.

 

[GreenTom]

Thanks chaps, really helpful.

My daily commute is 50 miles and with Zoom/Teams I am finding I don't need to travel quite as much. Obviously the fuel benefit does mean I have to attend as many Argyle games as I can to make it worthwhile!!