Tax free bikes

cheesetriangle

I've just been reading the article in the Independent (Sat 27th Aug) about the governments 'little known' Cycle To Work scheme.

The general jist of it is that your boss buys you a bike, and then leases it back to you over the course of a set period (1-3 years), and then you buy the bike back at the end of the lease.

The key thing though is that the lease payments come out of your pay /before/ NI and Tax, resulting in about a 40% saving.

For more info on this, check out:

http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/dft_susttravel/documents/page/dft_susttravel_038228-01.hcsp

This made me wonder though, what other pretax spending schemes/initiatives does the government run?

Anyone know of others?

tigrul

We have a similar scheme with computer equipment at my company. I was looking forward to getting loads of stuff 40% cheaper

What a con. all the computers on offer (Dell) were almost 100% more expensive than if you bought them directly from Dell's website. Plus the company didn't say how much you'd have to pay after 3 years to buy the computer.

dotcouk

Cross posted from the Green Chat - thought worth posting here was of value....

The Cycle to Work government scheme has been around for some time, but is never promoted as much as it could be.

Their is an overview about how it works here.

Also links to all the facilitators that are part of the scheme.

Basically this is how it works:

* You need a bike to commute to work (or at least you say that you do).
* Your empoyer and you join the scheme.
* Your empoyer hires out a bike that you choose - the money you pay is taken from your salary each month.
* The money you pay out does not get taxed or NI paid.
* At the end of a set period you buy the bike for a small fee (say £50).
* You now own a bike having paid as little as 50% the original cost.


Has anyone used this scheme? Was it successful? Any pitfalls?

the_postman_2

Can i just add i work for royal mail, and took up the bikes to work scheme about 6 months ago, i got £400 of vouchers for halfords and got a nice bike.

i pay £3.43 a week and i save on tax etc.

fantastic deal, at the end of 18 months i pay £35 and the bike is mine!

go for it

you can choose value of between £200 - £500 in £50 increments

davidlizard

I believe the Home Computing Initiative (HCI) has recently been withdrawn (but I am sure someone could confirm this), however another area where there are big savings to be made is childcare nursery vouchers which can be purchased prior to tax and NI. There is an article on here about it.

We have also been able to make pension and company share purchases through salary sacrifice, but there are a load of tax hoops we have had to jump through for this, for example concerning how long we have to hold shares for before flogging them.

Re the bikes, we have a scheme at work, and have made decent savings. The only pitfall was the the supplier in our case was limited to Halfords, who have a limited range of decent road bikes. However, we were able to get specialist independent dealers to quote against a spec, then pass this on to Halfords who would source the bike against the specification, and if it was not something they sold, then would obtain it from the independent dealer at no extra cost - they would sort out the paperwork.

The only downside (for me) was we could not get incomplete bikes - e.g. frames and custom built wheels.

Print_Screen

Sorry to resurrect this thread from the dead but I have a question and thought it would be best to to this thread rather than start an other.

My company are not part of the cycle to work scheme nor do they want to be. I however want to buy a bike to cycle to work.
What I wanted to know is is their another way for me to claim the tax back on a bike I buy to get to work with?

I am not self-employed and I am on normal PAYE if this makes a difference.

Andy_L

No, this is the only way for someone who isn't self employed.