On Sat, 12 Jun 2004 12:23:42 +0100, a particular chimpanzee named Colin Wilson randomly hit the keyboard and produced:
You must be rolling in it :-)
Local gov't rates are 40.4p/mile for the first 8,500 business miles, then 11.2p/mile after that. 'Excess' mileage you describe would only be claimable at the lower rate, and training even lower still.
On Sat, 12 Jun 2004 19:04:29 +0100 (BST), a particular chimpanzee named "Dave Liquorice" randomly hit the keyboard and produced:
When there was a national dispute with Local Govt employers over mileage allowances in the 1990s, we refused to use our own cars. My employer at the time hired a fleet of Fiestas for those who needed a car. You'd be amazed how fast those little babies can go in second gear, and how long the rev counter needle can stay in the red zone. They're also good at rallying down the most impenetrable dirt track.
What's the rationale behind that? This is for using your own car which you are fully funding including fuel, insurance, depreciation?
At 40.4p/mile, I can imagine that you might just about break even, but at 11.6 it would be losing hand over fist.
I imagine that a BCO could do a lot more than 8500 miles/year on business?
.andy
To email, substitute .nospam with .gl
....But if you receive less than 40p per mile you can claim a tax refund on the difference between what you actually received, and what you would have received at the 40p/mile rate.
Its also important to remember that these rates only really apply to employees and company directors. Self employed people can use these rates but only if their turnover is below the VAT registration limit. Otherwise anyone who is self employed must claim tax relief the actual motor expenses incurred, not a fixed mileage rate.
Nick
Donno, it was partly that that made us all start using hire cars...
He may well get a car either as a "company car" or access to a fleet/pool car for business use.
I think the rationale is that the higher rate enables you to recover a share of the overheads, including tax and insurance. Once you have done that, the lower rate covers only the marginal cost of the additional mileage - fuel, oil and wear and tear.
Whether these rates actually achieve this or not is another matter . . .
At the moment I'm saying "It varies quite a lot and I will visit your house and give you a quote, but to get an idea of the price £600 for the first square metre and economies of scale after that"
Anna zombied after saying that many times at the Euston Country Pastimes Show which turns out to be a very good show, not over commercialised (apart from me of course)
Anna ~~ Anna Kettle, Suffolk, England |""""| ~ Plaster conservation and lime plaster repair / ^^ \ // Freehand modelling in lime: overmantels, pargeting etc |____|
In article , Andy Hall writes
Just as a matter of interest... I changed from having a company car to a private lease one last year, I worked out what it was worth to me by adding three things together, the car allowance that the company was willing to pay (subject to paye), the tax that I would be paying on an equivalent car and the mileage rate paid (45p for the first 2000miles and 25p after that, based on my estimate of 30,000pa). I checked with the tax office and they will pay you the difference between what the company will pay you and their figure of 40p/mile, this can be paid as a lump sum at the end of the tax year if you choose and is not subject to any further taxation.
Is that for repair and restoration work or for interior modelled work like the overmantels? Either way, it seems remarkably inexpensive for something that I suspect is highly specialised.
As in Thetford?
.andy
To email, substitute .nospam with .gl
The price is for the modelling work; repair work isn't amenable to off the cuff pricings cos there are far too many variables.
Before I set up in business I read a very good book called "Starting a high income consultancy". I don't have a high income or a consultancy but that doesn't matter cos the book is about the psycology of doing business rather than about VAT and where to get a loan.
The book says "Charge as much for your consultancy services as you can get away with" so what I did was to pick a daily rate X to feed into my costing spreadsheet and when I have more work than I can cope with I increase X. So far X been increased once and hopefully will increase again as I get more well known in Suffolk. (I made life difficult for myself when I started the business by moving to a part of the country where I knew no-one)
Thats the one. Recommended
Anna ~~ Anna Kettle, Suffolk, England |""""| ~ Plaster conservation and lime plaster repair / ^^ \ // Freehand modelling in lime: overmantels, pargeting etc |____|
On Sun, 13 Jun 2004 14:44:36 +0100 (BST), a particular chimpanzee named "Dave Liquorice" randomly hit the keyboard and produced:
You'd think! No, as part of my contract of employment, I'm required to provide a vehicle for which I'm paid the amount above per mile. Part of that (about £700 per year) is paid as a "lump sum". 8500m x £0.404 = £3434. This is meant to be the total cost of running a car, but the only way I can see that this can be done is to drive a sub-£2000 banger with virtually no loan.
My annual mileage for work is about 5000-6000 miles per year, but with a lot of stop-start motoring. This reduces the mpg considerably. Last week, I filled up on the Monday, and by the end of the week after just using my car for work in and around the city, the computer was reading in the low 30s (almost 10 mpg less than average).
This is fairly common amongst Local Gov't BC depts, with very few offering lease cars; usually the larger rural areas where annual mileages are likely to run into the tens of thousands, and then only because it's cheaper for the Council to run a lease car than pay the mileage. I've never had a lease car, so I don't know the true costs, but I've estimated that I'd be >£2000 a year better off (even after tax) than I am now.
Might have been in the 70s. Is this paid net, or is it subject to tax and NIC? (most benefits in kind are). Big benefit :-)
I suppose a lot of local authority areas would have this scenario -
1-2 large towns/cities and less in the surroundings, so a lot of short trips.It's pretty difficult to work out, and I reckon that you pretty much need input from an accountant to be sure. The older system of tax hits with discounts on car and fuel depending on business mileage was much easier to work out. I do relatively little UK business mileage (mainly trips to the airport), so it was advantageous to switch to a car allowance and use a personal lease some while ago.
.andy
To email, substitute .nospam with .gl
Do they actually specify that the vehicle must be a car, and is your work completely within a city or other non-rural (ie smallish) area?
Don't know how much paraphanalia your average BCO has to cart around to do the job, but you could probably make a profit running a modern scooter, and that'd mark the end of any parking problems! Or a SMART car....
-- Richard Sampson
email me at richard at olifant d-ot co do-t uk
No because you're mixing up fixed costs and marginal costs. Depending on the car you might be losing a little, but arguably if you are going to do that sort of work mileage you will have looked carefully at fuel consumption before buying the car.
There was a similar dispute towards the end of my BCO days c.1983 save that we were all using buses (which was not impossible in SW London). After a week the employers came back with a new offer I thought very fair and so, disregarding the comments of my colleagues, I put in a letter (which never got a reply) to the head of personnel saying that I was very happy with this offer, wished to accept, and if the final offer were higher that was my loss.
A week later we were called together and told that a further better offer had been made and accepted. Everyone looked at me accusingly as the one who had been prepared to sell out. The looks changed when I pointed out that the new offer took money away from the relatively few people who did a high mileage and gave more to the much larger number who did next to no miles and for whom 40p/mile (in today's money) was a nice little perk.
Mmmm. Yes and no.
THe only real fixed cost that I can see in all of that is the insurance. THe fuel and depreciation certainly increase with mileage. Even purchase costs can be treated as amortised with distance.
In terms of seleection of car, an employed person should not really have to have their purchasing decision influenced within reason by amount of business use.
There are different strategies of course. I used to work with a guy who would buy £500 bangers with as much unexpired MOT as he could get, and treat them as a disposable item - i.e. when the MOT ran out or if anything at a garage was required he would sell or scrap it. It worked pretty well, and then he would use his decent car at the weekends.
.andy
To email, substitute .nospam with .gl
York BCOs / planners have a pool of SMARTS & LPG Astra's - Hugo should transfer. Although all the local govt employees based in town are supposed to use Park & Ride from the ring road, so it's a drive-park-bus-collect-drive-return-bus-collect-drive shuffle.
My insurance is around =A3350, that leaves =A3350 for servicing and repairs from the lump sum. At 80p/l and 30mpg petrol is about 12p/mile so you have another 28p/mile or =A31680/year after petrol costs as well... Doesn't look to far from the mark to me, for running costs.
This doesn't take into account the capital or depreciation, which does seem a little unfair as it is a contractual obligation to provide a car but "you knew that when you joined". The lump sum and 40p/mile do seem to more than fully cover the actual costs associated with your business milage.
I used to work for York. Never again! It sounds even worse now.
On Mon, 14 Jun 2004 22:47:52 +0100 (BST), a particular chimpanzee named "Dave Liquorice" randomly hit the keyboard and produced:
Less £160 for tax
No, it's only 31.7p per mile.
Which if you're doing 18,000m per year in anything but an old banger is significant at about 5p/mile
I've done a little spreadsheet to take into account all my running costs. The fixed costs (tax, insurance, loan, etc) are just under £4000 per year and the marginal cost (fuel, servicing, depreciation, etc) is 17.1p/mile. If I only used it for personal use, then my annual bill would be £5700, whereas if I do 6000m for work, the annual cost to me is £4200.
In my case, I'd have a car anyway, but as Tony pointed out, the number of miles influenced my choice of car. I have a diesel, whereas if I hadn't had to have it available for work, I may have gone for a sportier petrol engined car. There are people in my office who are two-car families purely because they need a car for work. For these people, the £4200 is money which would have gone directly into their pockets.
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