Sell my electric bicycles to my business for commuting

[cwah]

Sorry for that, I haven't been contractor for a very long time, so I'm still learning. How do I claim write down allowance? Is it just an invoice paper on the cost of the bikes?

For the value of the bike, I can easily get all the invoices that have been used to assemble the kit to the bike. Then remove 20% for market second hand value. If I don't have invoice, I take the price from new, then remove 20% then it would be the value.

Does that work?

[jamesbrown]

Ordinarily, there wouldn't be a problem with using the AIA and receiving full relief on the capital expenditure in the year the item was purchased. However, I believe there is a specific exclusion on items that were pre-owned and sold to the business.

My best advice to the OP: if you're willing to spend several grand on a couple of wind-up bikes, you might consider investing in a decent accountant and asking them.

[Scruff]

You are defying logic? I call sockie...

[TheCyclingProgrammer]

Sorry for that, I haven't been contractor for a very long time, so I'm still learning. How do I claim write down allowance? Is it just an invoice paper on the cost of the bikes?

For the value of the bike, I can easily get all the invoices that have been used to assemble the kit to the bike. Then remove 20% for market second hand value. If I don't have invoice, I take the price from new, then remove 20% then it would be the value.

Does that work?

If that's what you think is a fair second hand value on the open market, then fine. Just bear in mind, in the event of an enquiry, it's HMRC who you'd have to convince, not anybody here.

[eek]

If that's what you think is a fair second hand value on the open market, then fine. Just bear in mind, in the event of an enquiry, it's HMRC who you'd have to convince, not anybody here.

+1. I can't think of anything that depreciates quicker than a second hand bike but if you think HMRC will accept those figures good luck....

[d000hg]

Why not just get a scooter?

[mudskipper]

I'm not entirely sure to be honest, I thought the C2W scheme involved salary sacrifice, but that isn't necessary for the exemption to apply.

Either way, the legislation is quite simple:
Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003

It says "cycle", not "cycles" so if you want to take it literally then I'd say more than one might be pushing it.

When I was permatazoa, PermCo allowed 1 bike a year on their cycle to work scheme, but with that scheme the employee owned the bike after a year, which is different to how most contractors operate the scheme.

[d000hg]

Presumably if you drive a classic car to work, you're allowed two of those as company cars for the same reason that repairs can take a long time.

[TykeMerc]

I think that the majority of responses you've had can be summarised neatly into:-

1 Bike maybe, but check with your accountant and come to a sensible value.

More than 1 bike because of the somewhat daft reasoning you've listed, don't be silly, I don't think there's a CUK poster who thinks this is a good idea.

Alternatively just do it, and hope that HMRC don't get all grumpy about it, your choice.

[cwah]

Maybe I am completely silly but I'm planning to actually double all my equipment, not just about bicycle:
- I plan to have a spare laptop in case it crashes. It happened to me this year, a drop of coffee when into my macbook and it shut off. I went to Apple store who told me to book an appointment, and then to tell me repair is not included in my 3 years extra care because it's water damage. It took me about 2 weeks to get it fixed.
Believe it or not, it wasn't positively received and I was way slower at work. There wasn't any lower expectation on the productivity even though I had to use a very old spare laptop.

In some instance I could lose a contract because of not having a spare laptop. Risk of that happening is minimal, but when it happens it can cost me my job.

- The exact same principle applies to mobile phone. I'm planning to double it because risk is too big. You can call it insurance if you want..


So that's what I'm going to tell the inspector if he asks me why I have 2 electric bikes. Because as a contractor I can't afford not being everytime on time at work.