Interest-free season ticket loans - how do they work tax-wise?

Bossypants

Sorry if this is really basic, but I haven't been able to find a straight-forward answer to this which isn't several years out of date, or focusses on the employer rather than the employee.

Basically, I am hopefully about to take a new job which will require me to commute, and trying to figure out whether the salary on offer will be enough to cover the increased cost. My prospective employer offers an interest-free season ticket loan, so my question is would the repayments for that just get deducted from my normal take-home pay (so the net result would be the same as if I paid for the season ticket out of pocket), or is there some tax advantage to me in taking the loan and buying the ticket through my employer?

FYI the cost of the season ticket will be around £5000.

Thanks in advance!

wealdroam

Bossypants wrote: »

Sorry if this is really basic, but I haven't been able to find a straight-forward answer to this which isn't several years out of date, or focusses on the employer rather than the employee.

Basically, I am hopefully about to take a new job which will require me to commute, and trying to figure out whether the salary on offer will be enough to cover the increased cost. My prospective employer offers an interest-free season ticket loan, so my question is would the repayments for that just get deducted from my normal take-home pay (so the net result would be the same as if I paid for the season ticket out of pocket), or is there some tax advantage to me in taking the loan and buying the ticket through my employer?

FYI the cost of the season ticket will be around £5000.

Thanks in advance!

Have you read MSE's article on cheap season tickets?
(last updated July 2015)

There's a section in there about interest free season ticket loans.

There is no tax advantage.

Bossypants

Ah my apologies, I did read that but clearly missed that all important word 'net' in the text! Sorry, it's late and I should go to bed now.