Private Car/Company Fuel Benefit

wizzer

Hi There,
This year my company has paid for all my fuel - including private mileage - although the car I use is mine.

I'm being taxed for this but how do I claim back for the cost of fuel for business miles.

Been to the Inland Revenue site. Thought I was reasonably intelligent but I seem to go around in circles there and don't find what I want.

Any guidance gratefully received.

Thanks
Wizzer

nearlyrich

If you pay for the fuel you can claim the business miles if the company pay for all fuel you get taxed on the fuel card as a benefit in kind. I am pretty sure you can't claim business mileage if you are not paying for the fuel.

cash99

You will be taxed on the amount the company paid for your fuel, and you can claim 40p per mile up to 10,000 miles and 25p per mile thereafter as a deduction from your income.

wizzer

cash99 wrote:

You will be taxed on the amount the company paid for your fuel, and you can claim 40p per mile up to 10,000 miles and 25p per mile thereafter as a deduction from your income.

Thanks Cash,
Would you know is there a form to fill in for the Revenue?
Wizzer

parklane_2

Last year it was this form although I can't seem to find one for this year:

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/forms/p87.pdf

I guess it will be the same form with different dates. Perhaps they don't release the new version until the end f the tax year?

moonrakerz

wizzer wrote:

Hi There,
This year my company has paid for all my fuel - including private mileage - although the car I use is mine.

I'm being taxed for this but how do I claim back for the cost of fuel for business miles.

Been to the Inland Revenue site. Thought I was reasonably intelligent but I seem to go around in circles there and don't find what I want.

Any guidance gratefully received.

Thanks
Wizzer

If the company has paid for all your fuel you can't claim tax relief on it as well.You are being taxed on it as it (the private mileage) is classified as a benefit.
That's why you can't find it on the HMRC web site
The 40p a mile quoted is what you can claim if you are paying for all your fuel.

If you don't do many private miles it may be worth giving up the "free" fuel and claiming the 40p instead. You need to compare the tax you are paying with the numbers of gallons you would buy in a year for private use.

wizzer

moonrakerz wrote:

If the company has paid for all your fuel you can't claim tax relief on it as well.You are being taxed on it as it (the private mileage) is classified as a benefit.
That's why you can't find it on the HMRC web site
The 40p a mile quoted is what you can claim if you are paying for all your fuel.

If you don't do many private miles it may be worth giving up the "free" fuel and claiming the 40p instead. You need to compare the tax you are paying with the numbers of gallons you would buy in a year for private use.

My employer insists that I buy all my fuel with a fuel card and the cost of this benefit will be shown on my P11D.

Clearly fuel for personal use is a benefit and should be taxable but not the fuel I use for business miles? So presumably this is what I claim the relief back on at 40p a mile for first 10,000 etc?

Wizzer

moonrakerz

You are not paying for the fuel used for business so why should you be able to claim 40p a mile for it as well ???
As I said before you can only claim if you are paying for business mileage out of your own pocket.

wizzer

moonrakerz wrote:

You are not paying for the fuel used for business so why should you be able to claim 40p a mile for it as well ???
As I said before you can only claim if you are paying for business mileage out of your own pocket.

So what about the wear & tear on my car as indicated by my business mileage?

Andy_L

wizzer wrote:

So what about the wear & tear on my car as indicated by my business mileage?

If you were being paid say 25p/mile & paying your own fuel you could claim back tht tax on the difference between that and the IR rate of 40p (ie 22 or 40% of 15p/mile) not the whole 40p.

Since the OP is geting the fuel paid for their effective milage rate would be whatever the fuel economy is (eg 25mpg ~ 16p/mile ) and thus be reclaimable.

Andy

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/eimanual/EIM31360.htm
looks promising - payment of a lump sum spread over the total milage done

moonrakerz

As the taxman would say - tough ! and to some extent your employer is offloading some of his business travel expenses on to you. As you rightly say, a fuel card does not compensate you for wear and tear on your vehicle.

To be honest, what you have is the worst possible combination, your own car and your company paying for the fuel, unless you do a LOT of private miles this may not be worth having. Over the last few years that nice Mr Brown has made it more and more doubtful as to the cost effectiveness of a company car/fuel for the individual.
My P11D figure for this (ending) tax year was £3024 for the fuel card. If you assume £4 a gallon and 40mpg, this equates to 6600 or 12000 miles per year (at standard and higher rate income tax). If you are not doing much over these figures as private mileage you should give serious thought to giving up your fuel card and just claiming business mileage from your employer. The company car and associated benefits are not the big incentive they used to be. My Mondeo Est and fuel was costing me £240 a month in extra tax, but as everyone in the house was insured to use it, the rest of the family made the absolute maximum use of it when I wasn't using it for work.
Talk to your employer, he may be amenable to paying you some sort of allowance instead of your fuel card as compensation for private mileage which would still allow you to claim business mileage from him. You would have to pay Tax and NI on any allowance.

If you are using your car for your employer's business, make sure that you are insured for that and try and get him to pay the additional insurance premium.