Cycle to Work Sceme Cheats
Comments
-
Let's be realistic.
The govt doesn't want to get involved in the minutia of how many times you ride the bike to work. They wanted to encourage cycling, but needed it to have some element of worthiness to it.
There is absolutely zero to be gained by the govt by insisting the the scheme be strictly adhered to. For a start, they lose tax revenue anyway by cars being left on drives instead of using fuel, so there's one disincentive. There would also need to be some kind of sanity checking going on if there really was a need to make sure that scheme users really were using the bike for half of their journeys to work - how about you can only have a bike if you live within 25 miles of your regular work place {higher, higher, no lower cries the audience) - and kindly define regular - OR the distance is further AND there is a station at each / either end that generates a total mileage of no more than 25 cycling miles (make it 30. No I do 45 make it 50...).
Like my earlier post, the C2W scheme is a means [let's be honest here] of getting a largely unfit and idle population doing some kind of exercise. We've all argued till we're blue in the face about how cycling at population level decreases heart attacks, increases life expectancy, decreases NHS dependency etc, so the minor trade-off in lost revenue against the greater benefits derived from a healthier population are worth it, when compared to the alternative which is to have government insisting that you ride to work at least half of the time on your state-sponsored bike.
I wish I'd had one now.0 -
notsoblue wrote:W1 wrote:mybreakfastconsisted wrote:Impossible to police, I don't think I did anything wrong, it's not really tax evasion, just avoidance like using your ISA allowance.
You do seem to like to pick and choose what laws you want enforcing....
Lovely word that, "really".
Are you somehow using the fact that MBC uses C2W in a way that is technically breaking the rules, to somehow invalidate his opinion on the way corporations avoid tax through exploiting loopholes?
Good god man.
Exactly. How many people do you know who are in the upper tax bracket in terms of salary and then actually go on to declare to HMRC that they should be paying 40% tax on interest in their savings account? If you don't do that, you're guilty of tax evasion!Do not write below this line. Office use only.0 -
When my work introduced a cycle to work scheme about 5 people signed up, me included, even though I had a bike. I commuted on my old bike more often but hardly used them otherwise so more than 50% of it's use was commuting. Unlike everyone else who signed up though, I commuted on a bike every day. As soon as I had work further away though after moving jobs, the old bike has been relegated. I've probably 'officially' broken more than 100 fairly major laws in my life though, I imagine there aren't many people who haven't.- Genesis Equilibrium Athena
- Cannondale CAADX Force/105/Rival0 -
Headhuunter wrote:dilemna wrote:Wallace1492 wrote:Anyone here know anyone that has a bike through the scheme with absolutely no intention of cyling to work? Just doing it to save the tax.....
I really do not agree with this.
+1. It's tax fraud. If the bicycle is not used for at least 50% of qualifying journeys it is deemed by the Revenue as a Benefit in Kind (BIK). It's not just cheating the Revenue but all the rest of us who pay tax who are subsidising your new toy. I had to buy my bike as my employer refused to take part in the C2W scheme. And I DO ride it to work which is the thing that really farks me off as other people who have bought bike(s) on the C2W scheme leave their fragile catwalk race bikes or full sus race downhill bikes at home and still drive!!! The system is clearly being abused by cheating employers as well employees. I think the NI contributions are reduced as well as the cost of the bike comes off gross salary BEFORE tax and NI afaib. People who have bought a bike or bike(s) on the C2W scheme and do not ride them to work are just as bent as benefit cheats.dft.gov.uk wrote:
The exemption removes the tax charge that would otherwise apply to cycles and cyclists' safety equipment loaned to employees provided the following conditions are met
- Ownership of the equipment is not transferred to the employee during the loan period;
- Employees use the equipment mainly for qualifying journeys; i.e. for journeys made between the employee’s home and workplace, or part of those journeys (for example, to the station), or for journeys between one workplace and another.
The tax exemption only applies when an employee mainly uses the cycle and cyclists' safety equipment for qualifying journeys. A qualifying journey for an employee means a journey, or part of a journey,
- between his or her home and workplace, or
- between one workplace and another,
in connection with the performance of their duties of employment.
So, for example, cycling to and from the station to get to work would qualify. In this case, 'mainly' means that more than 50% of use of the cycle and safety equipment must involve a qualifying journey.
Employees are not expected to keep mileage logs but employers should make clear to them (employees) that if they do not use the cycle mainly for qualifying journeys, they may lose the benefit of the tax exemption. In that event the employer would have to report the benefit in kind on form P11D, and account for Class 1A NICs, in the normal way. The employee would be liable for the tax due on the benefit in kind.
I know plenty of people who have bought bikes and barely ever ride to work, there are a few where I work. However I'm sure more than 50% of their journeys are to work because they simply don't use the bike any other time anyway. People often have great intentions to ride to work and buy a bike on the scheme but then get lazy or the weather's rainy or they get a puncture and never get round to fixing it etc etc.
I don't see how they would ever stand a chance in hell of actually enforcing the 50% rule and to me it seems utterly pointless to write it in. It may not be in the spirit of the scheme but as far as I'm concerned there are far wose tax dodges out there - businesses avoiding millions in corporation tax, wealthy individuals with offshore payment schemes avoiding personal tax even the car scrappage scheme which in my view was insane. As far as I'm concerned purchase of bikes, tax free, for whatever purpose which even slightly gets people out of cars and onto bikes, get my thumbs up...
HMRC should focus its attention on the macro view rather than the cycle to work scheme.
First point – If you buy a bike only ride it for two days in the whole of the C2W period, one for work the other not, no rules have been broken. However the fair market value at the end of the scheme maybe higher if checked.
Second Point Agreed – Rule isn’t enforceable. However technically business avoiding tax through legal means regardless of morality or the amount is simply tax avoidance and is legal, not declaring tax due or benefits received on your tax form is tax evasion and illegal. I do agree with last point though let’s make all bike tax free.
Third Point – HMRC do not focus attention on C2W scheme avoidance. I do not know of anyone who has been pulled up on 50% use or fair market value. They simply do not care about it. Not enforcing the law doesn’t make it legal though….--
Chris
Genesis Equilibrium - FCN 3/4/50 -
Headhuunter wrote:notsoblue wrote:W1 wrote:mybreakfastconsisted wrote:Impossible to police, I don't think I did anything wrong, it's not really tax evasion, just avoidance like using your ISA allowance.
You do seem to like to pick and choose what laws you want enforcing....
Lovely word that, "really".
Are you somehow using the fact that MBC uses C2W in a way that is technically breaking the rules, to somehow invalidate his opinion on the way corporations avoid tax through exploiting loopholes?
Good god man.
Exactly. How many people do you know who are in the upper tax bracket in terms of salary and then actually go on to declare to HMRC that they should be paying 40% tax on interest in their savings account? If you don't do that, you're guilty of tax evasion!
I do!--
Chris
Genesis Equilibrium - FCN 3/4/50 -
CiB wrote:Let's be realistic.
The govt doesn't want to get involved in the minutia of how many times you ride the bike to work. They wanted to encourage cycling, but needed it to have some element of worthiness to it.
There is absolutely zero to be gained by the govt by insisting the the scheme be strictly adhered to. For a start, they lose tax revenue anyway by cars being left on drives instead of using fuel, so there's one disincentive. There would also need to be some kind of sanity checking going on if there really was a need to make sure that scheme users really were using the bike for half of their journeys to work - how about you can only have a bike if you live within 25 miles of your regular work place {higher, higher, no lower cries the audience) - and kindly define regular - OR the distance is further AND there is a station at each / either end that generates a total mileage of no more than 25 cycling miles (make it 30. No I do 45 make it 50...).
Like my earlier post, the C2W scheme is a means [let's be honest here] of getting a largely unfit and idle population doing some kind of exercise. We've all argued till we're blue in the face about how cycling at population level decreases heart attacks, increases life expectancy, decreases NHS dependency etc, so the minor trade-off in lost revenue against the greater benefits derived from a healthier population are worth it, when compared to the alternative which is to have government insisting that you ride to work at least half of the time on your state-sponsored bike.
I wish I'd had one now.
It’s not 50% of your journeys to work. It’s 50% of the bike’s use.--
Chris
Genesis Equilibrium - FCN 3/4/50 -
CiB wrote:There is absolutely zero to be gained by the govt by insisting the the scheme be strictly adhered to. For a start, they lose tax revenue anyway by cars being left on drives instead of using fuel, so there's one disincentive.
They lose fuel tax however the fewer cars on the road the less damage done to road surfaces (bikes probably do less damage than the weather) so less expenditure on repairs, fewer cars on the road also means less needs to be spent on expensive infrastructure like traffic lights, roundabouts, flyovers etc etc, the less damage is done to buildings by pollution, the less likely we are to break EU regulations on city air quality (London failed last year and was issued a hefty fine, paid by taxpayers), the fewer obese people need NHS spending etc etc...
Some people argue that car driving is heavily subsidised by the taxpayer, if all costs are taken into account:
http://www.rdrf.org/freepubs/pumpup.htmDo not write below this line. Office use only.0 -
Sketchley wrote:Headhuunter wrote:notsoblue wrote:W1 wrote:mybreakfastconsisted wrote:Impossible to police, I don't think I did anything wrong, it's not really tax evasion, just avoidance like using your ISA allowance.
You do seem to like to pick and choose what laws you want enforcing....
Lovely word that, "really".
Are you somehow using the fact that MBC uses C2W in a way that is technically breaking the rules, to somehow invalidate his opinion on the way corporations avoid tax through exploiting loopholes?
Good god man.
Exactly. How many people do you know who are in the upper tax bracket in terms of salary and then actually go on to declare to HMRC that they should be paying 40% tax on interest in their savings account? If you don't do that, you're guilty of tax evasion!
I do!
God, you're way too honest!Do not write below this line. Office use only.0 -
the 50% requirement is just so that other leisure industries dont kick up a stink that they are losing business - the govt got it through the legislature by pointing to the fact that it was helping industry somehow... not just getting more people on bikes with tax breaks which at the time seemed like a nice cosy aim.
does anyone remember a similar scheme for laptops launched in about 2003...?0 -
I know of allot of C2W cheats in my office, people who live 50 miles away for example (claim they cycle to the station - amusing seeing as there company car is in the car park!
Even our HR people abuse it - not really surprising.
personally, I don't do it now. Just buy secondhand or negotiate a better new price.0 -
notsoblue wrote:W1 wrote:mybreakfastconsisted wrote:Impossible to police, I don't think I did anything wrong, it's not really tax evasion, just avoidance like using your ISA allowance.
You do seem to like to pick and choose what laws you want enforcing....
Lovely word that, "really".
Are you somehow using the fact that MBC uses C2W in a way that is technically breaking the rules, to somehow invalidate his opinion on the way corporations avoid tax through exploiting loopholes?
Good god man.
The only difference being, MBC is technically breaking the rules, and corporations aren't. So one is evasion, and one is avoidance. One is legal, one is not.0 -
clarkey cat wrote:the 50% requirement is just so that other leisure industries dont kick up a stink that they are losing business - the govt got it through the legislature by pointing to the fact that it was helping industry somehow... not just getting more people on bikes with tax breaks which at the time seemed like a nice cosy aim.
does anyone remember a similar scheme for laptops launched in about 2003...?
Was abused by many and withdrawn. Simply put people were getting tax free laptop then selling them to poeple not in the scheme for more than they paid, thereby making a tax free profit.--
Chris
Genesis Equilibrium - FCN 3/4/50 -
W1 wrote:The only difference being, MBC is technically breaking the rules, and corporations aren't. So one is evasion, and one is avoidance. One is legal, one is not.
Blimey. This really is serious business. :P0 -
mybreakfastconsisted wrote:What law do you reckon I've broken?
It's not measured by mileage you strange stalky nutjob, I could use the CTW bike to cycle to Greece and back and then commute on it once and abide entirely by the guidelines.
But you haven't, have you? You haven't, and never intended (by your own admission) to comply with the conditions which would exempt you from paying tax on your bike.
"The exemption removes the tax charge that would otherwise apply to cycles and cyclists' safety equipment loaned to employees provided the following conditions are met
- Ownership of the equipment is not transferred to the employee during the loan period;
- Employees use the equipment mainly for qualifying journeys; i.e. for journeys made between the employee’s home and workplace, or part of those journeys (for example, to the station), or for journeys between one workplace and another.
The tax exemption only applies when an employee mainly uses the cycle and cyclists' safety equipment for qualifying journeys. A qualifying journey for an employee means a journey, or part of a journey,
- between his or her home and workplace, or
- between one workplace and another,
in connection with the performance of their duties of employment. "
So, for example, cycling to and from the station to get to work would qualify. In this case, 'mainly' means that more than 50% of use of the cycle and safety equipment must involve a qualifying journey.
Employees are not expected to keep mileage logs but employers should make clear to them that if they do not use the cycle mainly for qualifying journeys, they may lose the benefit of the tax exemption. In that event the employer would have to report the benefit in kind on form P11D, and account for Class 1A NICs, in the normal way. The employee would be liable for the tax due on the benefit in kind.0 -
-
I thought this thread was going to be about the impact on SCR by those who use their vouchers to buy gocycles.
Hat + Beard0 -
So people are now moaning about others benefitting beyond the intentions of the cycle to work scheme!?
Jaysus effing Cripes there are some miserable people on this website.
Clearly 'smashing' didn't happen for some this Valentines day. Disgruntled itch that is.
Me I'm still recovering... Balham Hill never looked so steep.
Right now and probably forever more I could care less if someone had the nerve to take advantage of a payment scheme that allowed them to pay less tax for a bicycle. I subsidised it? Keep the change mate.
Big deal.Food Chain number = 4
A true scalp is not only overtaking someone but leaving them stopped at a set of lights. As you, who have clearly beaten the lights, pummels nothing but the open air ahead. ~ 'DondaddyD'. Player of the Unspoken Game0 -
Headhuunter wrote:God, you're way too honest!
http://www.accountingweb.co.uk/topic/ta ... ing/477548
Might be the best policy!0 -
W1 wrote:mybreakfastconsisted wrote:What law do you reckon I've broken?
It's not measured by mileage you strange stalky nutjob, I could use the CTW bike to cycle to Greece and back and then commute on it once and abide entirely by the guidelines.
But you haven't, have you? You haven't, and never intended (by your own admission) to comply with the conditions which would exempt you from paying tax on your bike.
"The wibble wibble wibble wibble wibble wibble wibble wibble wibble wibble wibble wibble wibble wibble wibble wibble wibble wibble wibble wibble wibble wibble wibble wibble.
Which part of "I use my Dawes for commuting now" has passed you by?0 -
mybreakfastconsisted wrote:W1 wrote:mybreakfastconsisted wrote:What law do you reckon I've broken?
It's not measured by mileage you strange stalky nutjob, I could use the CTW bike to cycle to Greece and back and then commute on it once and abide entirely by the guidelines.
But you haven't, have you? You haven't, and never intended (by your own admission) to comply with the conditions which would exempt you from paying tax on your bike.
"The wibble wibble wibble wibble wibble wibble wibble wibble wibble wibble wibble wibble wibble wibble wibble wibble wibble wibble wibble wibble wibble wibble wibble wibble.
Which part of "I use my Dawes for commuting now" has passed you by?
How can something that you didn't say pass me by?
"I use my Galaxy for commuting now, but for the first two years I used my Trek for commuting and the CTW Dawes for touring."
Jeez.0 -
Anyway this thread reminds me, my old C2W scheme has just expired so what do I buy with the new one under the N+1 rule (which is about as legally enforceable).
I currently have the Scott on C2W and the FG commuter. Living in London makes an MTB of little use, maybe a track bike for Herne Hill? Alternatively does anyone sell a really cheap frame with DA 50mm carbon clinchers and no groupset?0 -
W1 wrote:Headhuunter wrote:God, you're way too honest!
http://www.accountingweb.co.uk/topic/ta ... ing/477548
Might be the best policy!
I don't have enough savings to make me liable for anything like £700,000! To be honest I don't have any savings to tax anymore because it's all in an offset account against my mortgage so untaxable but even if I did we would be talking b*gger all.... I don't know anyone who has ever bothered to register for 40% tax on savings or ever been caught....Do not write below this line. Office use only.0 -
Employees are not expected to keep mileage logs but employers should make clear to them that if they do not use the cycle mainly for qualifying journeys, they may lose the benefit of the tax exemption. In that event the employer would have to report the benefit in kind on form P11D, and account for Class 1A NICs, in the normal way. The employee would be liable for the tax due on the benefit in kind.[/quote]
Its a pretty arbitrary requirement. There is no suggestion of penalties for breaching the "rules", just that you may have to repay the tax that you have saved. Not really a big risk to be perfectly honest. Its a stupidly set up scheme, but arguably the "spirit" of it is to get people on bikes and keeping fit, there really isn't any real emphasis placed on cycling to work as far as I can tell.0 -
It seems very obvious that this scheme is there to encourage cycling.... and that it clearly does.
By definition this scheme allows members of the working public to have a small tax break of a couple of hundred pounds at most, not alot compared to the tax many people here and in reality anyone who qualifies to use the scheme pays every month!
And for that tax break, the govenment supports the cycling industry and also encourages a healthy lifestyle!
Really suprises me that people have an issue with this!! Although it does seem to be coming from people who are unable to participate...........
I for one would support any scheme that gets more people out on bikes, surely this benefits every person on this site......0 -
Personally I think the OP threw down some shark bait which was quite savagely bitten into. Especially since he hasn't contributed since...
However, I still think this thread points out clearly who enjoyed Valentines day and who didn't...
Just saying...Food Chain number = 4
A true scalp is not only overtaking someone but leaving them stopped at a set of lights. As you, who have clearly beaten the lights, pummels nothing but the open air ahead. ~ 'DondaddyD'. Player of the Unspoken Game0 -
This thread is special.
0 -
I do!
is that because you are notifying HMRC to get the full 40% rebate on your pension contributions at the same time?0 -
DonDaddyD wrote:Personally I think the OP threw down some shark bait which was quite savagely bitten into. Especially since he hasn't contributed since...
However, I still think this thread points out clearly who enjoyed Valentines day and who didn't...
Just saying...
Absolutely... I'm sure the cost of retreiving the piffling amount of tax from those who bought bikes on the C2W scheme and then didn't C2W would be less than the cost of tax collectors time in retreiving it. Surely HMRC has bigger fish to fry?Do not write below this line. Office use only.0 -
I know someone who intends to. And I probably would if I were eligible despite the fact both of us live 30 miles away from work.
In my defence I would take the bike it to work and go for a ride at lunch time instead of driving to the shop to get lunch. So I would be doing some work related journeys if not actual commuting
Isn't it usually you that does thatDonDaddyD wrote:Personally I think the OP threw down some shark bait which was quite savagely bitten into. Especially since he hasn't contributed since...
However, I still think this thread points out clearly who enjoyed Valentines day and who didn't...
Just saying...
0
