PHEV Company Car - Who pays for the electricity?

jsimis

I am hoping to get a PHEV car this year as my company car. I was just wondering if anyone had any experience with charging the vehicles at home and how they went about claiming the electricity? My fuel is covered by the company and I pay fuel benefit, would a separate meter on a wall charger and charge that back be the best bet?

Alter_ego

Many people with PHEVs never plug them in. Just run on the petrol and allow it to charge itself. The whole concept seems pointless to me.

singhini

Back in 2017/2018 tax year i had a PHEV company car and i claimed "Tax Relief" on the money spent on electricity for business trips (i had to keep records of the "actual cost" of the electricity). 

Step one - Check if you can claim
Here's a link to government website: Claim tax relief for your job expenses: Vehicles you use for work - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Incase the link doesn't work, these are the questions you will be asked (and the answer i put in relation to myself)
Q1 - Who are you claiming for (i ticked Myself)
Q2 - Are you claiming for expenses after April 2016 (YES)
Q3 - Did you pay tax in each of the years you are claiming for (YES)
Q4 - Do you complete self-assessment returns (NO) 
Q5 - Are you claiming expenses of £2,500 or more in a single tax year (NO)
Q6 - Has your employer paid back all of your work related expenses (NO)    [Bcoz employers not paid me for electricity)
Q7 - Select the expense you want to claim (Vehicles you use for work)
Q8 - Do you use a vehicle you use for work that you bought or lease (NO)
Q9 - Do you use a vehicle that is owned or leased by employer (YES)
Q10 - Do you want to claim for money spent on fuel [fuel includes electricity]   (YES)
Q11 - Are you claiming tax relief for for more than 5 different jobs   (NO)
Conclusion was "you are eligible to claim job expenses" [it states you need a government Gateway user ID], I'm guessing if you do self-assessment you can claim this expense via the Self-Assessment form

Step 2 - Keep receipts or statements incase HMRC request them
This is the tricky bit. You need to work out how much you are spending on charging the car. For me i had a BMW 330e and the literature said the car had a 3.7 KwH charge and that it took 5 hours to charge the vehicle. i then checked my electricity bill for how much i was paying for 1 KwH  (lets say £0.08p). Therefore in this example it would be: 3.7 x 5 x £0.08 = £1.48p per day.
I created an Excel spreadsheet and logged everything onto that. Remember you won't get £1.48p back but the tax on this amount (i.e. if you are a 20% tax payer its 20% of £1.48p).

Last thing, i didn't ever charge the car on a Friday evening or Saturday evening (no point, if you charge it on a Friday evening and then Saturday morning drive to the supermarket, you will have paid for the electricity and then you will have to pay for the private mileage showing on your car to your employer).

Very final thing. in no way am i advising you and my comments do not consuetude anything legally binding. This post is nothing more than just ramblings of a crazy man and you should take your own legal advice.
Edit....... forgot to mention, Alter_ego is right in that lots of people don't bother. I only did it in 1 tax year and couldn't be bothered to do it again (because when i did it was only worth something like £65 for the whole year). 

Grumpy_chap

Is there an AMAP rate rate applicable to the vehicle?  That might give an easier approach with less record keeping.

macman

Alter_ego said:

Many people with PHEVs never plug them in. Just run on the petrol and allow it to charge itself. The whole concept seems pointless to me.

Environmental issues apart, because it's much cheaper to charge it from the mains than by burning petrol first to charge it. If you can't or don't want to plug it in, there's no point in a PHEV, just buy a conventional 'self-charging' hybrid.

Jeremy535897

I had a self charging hybrid system on my bicycle fifty years ago. It was called pedalling plus a dynamo.

Grumpy_chap

macman said:

Alter_ego said:

Many people with PHEVs never plug them in. Just run on the petrol and allow it to charge itself. The whole concept seems pointless to me.

Environmental issues apart, because it's much cheaper to charge it from the mains than by burning petrol first to charge it. If you can't or don't want to plug it in, there's no point in a PHEV, just buy a conventional 'self-charging' hybrid.

I agree with you, but the problem with many of the PHEV's was they were chosen because of attractive BIK but, if there was a fuel card as well in the package, then the plugs never came out of the cellophane.  Why would the driver plug in and pay for electricity when the company is paying for petrol?

macman

Point taken, but not everyone buying a PHEV is going to be using it for business mileage.