Company Car Allowance and Mileage Rates

envy said:
ab7 said:
Sorry yeh I realise it's not 'enough', certainly not supporting the small amount you're getting, just saying it makes sense to me for the mileage rate to be better on a personal car that isn't supported.

Do you get a choice of having a company car rather than allowance?

You certainly shouldn't be expected to run at a loss, were you aware of the mileage rate before you got the car?

no choice in company car as this has been taken away

i had the car first but when i was interviewed for the job by my manager, i was told the allowance and rate of 40p per mile. he still agrees that he said this to me.

i was offered the job and accepted. the initial contract i was given when i accepted was 2 pages long and only stated, salary, allowance but nothing about the mileage rate. last month they gave me a 10 page contract with all sorts of additional criteria such as the 20p mileage and also they could relocate my working office up to 25 miles without my consent (i havent signed it yet)

obviously a little annoyed as they are effectively reducing my mileage by half so this month i would of been due £400 but it was £200 instead and on average i would be doing about 1k a month over the year, so would be losing out on about 2.5k a year

Hmm, perhaps you should persue it through your manager if he's supporting his original statement, I mean that's some big numbers you're missing out on, would you still have taken the contract if you'd known it was 20p?

My previous employers always covered 40p a mile (well went up to 45p when the government moved it), but they always supplied a hire car for longer journeys. Only my most recent role has a company car (fully expensed), but they provide a fuel card which is accpeted anywhere and then you just pay back personal mileage based on your mpg which is fair.
 
yeah i have taken it up with my manager and he says he has had a word with them but as it is the company policy, he has no say in it or my contract. he told me what he believed it to be based on what other people were getting. so i have to take it up with HR as they are the ones responsible ultimately

i would of thought twice about taking the position as my previous job paid 1k more, had 5 more holidays a year and i did 3 hours less per week.... i would of negotiated for a contract closer to that if i had known it was only 20p per mile. the allowance and mileage rate swung this as it made up the difference in what i lost out on

my previous job gave me a company car with a fuel card and i didnt even have to pay for my personal mileage..... not that i did much of that
 
If they want you to do company business and wont pay more than 20p, tell them to supply you with a hire car as you don't have insurance to cover you for business use....simples :D
 
Just a thought. Your allowance isn't 40p mile up to 4k, and then 20p mile after 4k? My previous company scheme was along those lines.
 
Wondermike said:
Claiming tax relief is easy, just add together what you've been paid and subtract it from the total using the 45p and 25p rates, get relief on the difference.

My tax office accepts a letter and a schedule of miles and payments done on Excel.

Easy to claim back the tax via tax return. Don't even need to supply evidence, unless thay ask for it. I claim it every year. Obviously advisable to have the evidence just in case!
 
Darkman said:
If they want you to do company business and wont pay more than 20p, tell them to supply you with a hire car as you don't have insurance to cover you for business use....simples :D

lol, dont think i would get away with that considering they give me a 4k annual cash allowance :)

Z4Bob said:
Just a thought. Your allowance isn't 40p mile up to 4k, and then 20p mile after 4k? My previous company scheme was along those lines.

nope 20p regardless of mileage
 
What most companies do is pay a lower mileage rate if you get a car allowance. You can claim the difference between your mileage rate and HMRC guideline rates against tax. If you don't get a car allowance you might get the HMRC guideline amounts from your company as your personal car rate.

If you got a fuel card you were paying tax on it as it covered you for personal mileage (or you should have been) considered to be a couple of grand a year bik iirc.

If you can take the higher mileage rate and no allowance, do the math and see which pays better based on your projected annual business mileage. If you're going to do more than about 25k per annum, think seriously about taking a company car if available as tyres, servicing etc all add up
 
i get £400 a month plus 29p a mile for the first 10k then 16p a mile

the last company i worked at i got £485 per month and and 30p a mile, so my present company is much worse :thumbsdown:
 
We are just going through the process of revising our employee handbook and contracts of employment, you must put your objections to your new contract in writing to your line manager, failure to sign your new contract and continuing to do your job is effectively agreeing with your new contract.

By effectively reducing your benefits by £2,500 per year makes your case very strong, start mentioning constructive dismissal and seeking legal advice to your line manager and HR will start to get worried.

But you absolutely must put your objections in writing.....do it today
 
SARS, I hope you have a lawyer with employment law as a speciality and not just an HR person looking at this. Iirc you cannot say that someone accepts a contract if they haven't signed.

An example, I'll write a contract that you'll give me your shiny new Mercedes and you'll continue to pay for it, and send it to you with a letter that says that if you don't sign, you accept and the car will be delivered at your expense within 30 days. That's not going to happen is it. You could put anything in that contract and they are over a barrel. If nothing else, a good employment lawyer will have a field day should you choose to make someone redundant later on and they don't have a signed employment contract.
 
another thing to consider is what ever you get for you car allowance will not go up at the rate petrol or diesel does, infact i have never known a company put its allowance up
 
Our company car allowance has just been increased from £5400 pa to £7300 on my grade. But, i've been told i have to wait until 2015 to get it despite having opted out now for over 7 years!
 
original guvnor said:
Our company car allowance has just been increased from £5400 pa to £7300 on my grade. But, i've been told i have to wait until 2015 to get it despite having opted out now for over 7 years!

How the hell does that work?
 
One of the companies I work for as for receipts to prove mileage, so I have to be careful to fill up with enough to cover the mileage allowance.

Unfortunately they keep asking for bigger & bigger receipt amounts to cover the increased cost in petrol, yet won't pay any more for that increased cost.

It started (a good few years ago though) at about £44 of receipts for 200 miles (£0.22/mile), and it's now at about £55 of receipts for 200 miles (£0.26/mile) - we do now get £0.45/£0.25 per mile back for 10k/10k+ miles.

£55 top-ups means the fuel light must be on before I top-up, otherwise I can't get enough in - and they won't accept 'part receipts' to cover one journey - so if I can only get £50 of fuel in then I have to adjust my mileage claim downwards to fit. I can't balance it out on the next trip with a bigger fill-up as they give you a maximum mileage for each trip according to their expense system - you can claim up to that limit, but not over, so if you have a 60 mile diversion due to an accident, then it's hard luck (although we have worked out ways around this now).
 
yeah i have to agree with stu. if i dont sign, that is not accepting it.

in fact, with a previous employer, i did even sign a vague contract and the union who represented me argued that because it was very vague, they could not use that to cover something considered unreasonable under the terms of employment i.e to work anywhere in the uk if they asked me to

the employers eventually backed down once this was made clear to them
 
Stuart Truman said:
original guvnor said:
Our company car allowance has just been increased from £5400 pa to £7300 on my grade. But, i've been told i have to wait until 2015 to get it despite having opted out now for over 7 years!

How the hell does that work?

Because they say that as you keep company cars for 5 years before upgrade/changing them I have to wait because I'm 2 years into a 5 year cycle!! Laughable isn't it?

I've escalated it to my Board Director to do battle with H.R.
 
Stuart Truman said:
SARS, I hope you have a lawyer with employment law as a specialty and not just an HR person looking at this. Iirc you cannot say that someone accepts a contract if they haven't signed.

Two things, first he has signed a contract when he first started his job, second it is the same as your bank notifying you of a change to your contract, regardless if you agree, unless you respond in writing the contract is binding. Failure to respond in writing and continue to use that service is considered an agreement to the new terms, ergo if you continue to work and get PAID you agree to it. The exception is that envy is being financially worsened by the new contract and thus must put it in writing to take it forward.

edit. by putting it in writing that he objects he can negotiate a new contract, with some financial compensation for the loss of earnings

and BTW we use a company called Peninsular for our employment matters, so any written advice they give is backed by them paying for the claim if it is incorrect.
 
Let's be honest, Banking and employment are two different things. If you've taken advice, all good but there's also an amount of employment Karma, in that if you piss off your employees by worsening their T&Cs, the ones you really don't want to lose will be the first to up sticks and find a new employer as they're the talent who'll get rehired leaving you with the left overs.
 
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