company van tax

n0fe4r

Hi all. (I have posted this in "Cutting Tax" as well as I wasn't sure which best suited it)

My company has just started sending out declarations for us to sign for the Inland Revenue about being taxed on our company vans between April 07 and April 08. Every month I have to email a spreadsheet to my manager declaring my personal use and I pay 8.5 pence per mile (which has since gone up to 11 pence per mile). Since I did use my van for personal use between April 07 and about August 07, I am likely to get stung. :mad:

However, the problem I have is that when joining the company nobody told me about being liable for tax on the van. It is only when I started hearing rumours that the tax was going up (as far as I was concerned there was no tax anyway) that I stopped using my van for personal use. If I had known about being liable upon joining the company then I wouldn't have used the van for personal use at all.

If I do get taxed, where would I stand? Surely it was my employer's responsibility to tell me of this in the first place?

Thanks in advance.

Pssst

Why cant you simply declare that you didnt use the van for personal use?

Having said that,using it for travel too and from your place of work would likely be deemed personal use.

The rules are made by HMRC so whether or not you were aware of them is of no consequence.

There could be some debate depending on what your job is. for instance if you work from home then travel to your first job may not be counted as personal use,,check the HMRC website for finer details

goldspanners

Pssst wrote: »

Why cant you simply declare that you didnt use the van for personal use?

Having said that,using it for travel too and from your place of work would likely be deemed personal use.

thats what i thought, just tell them you dont use it for personal use.
it all depends on what kind of job you do with the van,if your company van is your office,i.e you are a mobile service engineer you can use it to get to and from work without worrying about the tax,and also if you are on call or 24 hour call out system then similarly you can use the van (within reason) for personal use.
if you go to the same place every day then you may be liable for tax.

you can thank the company managers and directors who bought mitsubishi pick ups for this crap.

seriously who would pay £3000 a year for a works van?

n0fe4r

Sorry just have said. I am based at home so getting to and from work isn't the issue.

Also, before I was aware that any tax even existed I was using it for personal use and this is proved by the spreadsheet that I have to fill out (as I said in my post).