Cycle to work scheme - is it worth it?

mcfisco

Marco_Panettone wrote: »

I've always wondered what any company would do if you decided to return the bike. They wouldn't want it, or the hassle of reselling it on the open market. I doubt they'd want to hire it to someone else (possible legal problems re: maintanence).

If you offered them a nominal £5 I doubt they'd turn you down just to be rid of it.

The problem with that is: the company may well take the fiver and be done with it, HMRC - on the other hand - could also take the position that you under-paid and clobber you.

The scheme isn't worth it for me now [40% taxpayer] - I can pick up a [new] last year's model for less than the net outlay with the scheme.

Idiophreak

mcfisco wrote: »

The problem with that is: the company may well take the fiver and be done with it, HMRC - on the other hand - could also take the position that you under-paid and clobber you.

And the employer....fairly sure they won't be too happy with them selling assets cheap to their employees

bebewoo

I agree wholeheartedly with pt8m and mcfisco, the cycle to work scheme used to be good value, but they changed the rules so now it is not a money saving option at all. You have to pay far more at the end of the scheme than we were (lied to) told. There's a hell of a lot of difference between the £5 I was told I would have to pay and the £130 I was actually asked to pay to keep the bike.
They did this to me halfway through the scheme, I'm annoyed as I would never usually buy a bike full price, and only did so because of the savings I was supposed to make from the scheme.
Next time I will just haggle with the bicycle store and get a deal myself, and I recommend you do the same.

stevemcol

mcfisco wrote: »

The scheme isn't worth it for me now [40% taxpayer] - I can pick up a [new] last year's model for less than the net outlay with the scheme.

I know people who have played a smart waiting game with their vouchers and got the bargain bike still on the scheme.

stevemcol

bebewoo wrote: »

I agree wholeheartedly with pt8m and mcfisco, the cycle to work scheme used to be good value, but they changed the rules so now it is not a money saving option at all. You have to pay far more at the end of the scheme than we were (lied to) told. There's a hell of a lot of difference between the £5 I was told I would have to pay and the £130 I was actually asked to pay to keep the bike.
They did this to me halfway through the scheme, I'm annoyed as I would never usually buy a bike full price, and only did so because of the savings I was supposed to make from the scheme.
Next time I will just haggle with the bicycle store and get a deal myself, and I recommend you do the same.

I think it's down to how strenuously the individual companies haggle with HMRC. Ours gets us quite a good deal.

bebewoo

You're lucky Steve.
In most companies there is absolutely no way of knowing what the buyback price is going to be, and the company cannot tell you as HMRC may change the rules during the scheme (again!). They can only guess and that guess may be very wrong.

mcfisco

I know people who have played a smart waiting game with their vouchers and got the bargain bike still on the scheme.

But you should always get a better buying price outside of the scheme given that the retailer has to pay the scheme company 10%-12% IIRC.
That extra 10% or so available swings the whole deal the other way for me, some companies want the 10-12% as an admin fee on top of their advertised prices.
I got a 2012 Cannondale CAAD10 [105] at the back end of last year for £1K, I couldn't find anyone to get within £300 of that on the scheme.

stevemcol

it's a big company bebewoo so it is possible we are being offered a level of protection. ie the company bearing the risk of the buy back price changing. not sure on that.

DCodd

I always thought that the you could only buy a bike at the list price? I was informed that even though there were retailers selling the previous years Croix De Fer models at £999.99 the C2W scheme would disallow it as it's list price was £1049.99.

Was I given duff information?

beyondthehorizon

Personally, it makes more financial sense to get a decent second hand bike then to join this scheme.

It's only worth if you absolutely must have a brand spanking new bike / latest model and you're going to put it to good use.

or you don't have the funds to buy the bike outright