Buying a motocycle/scooter through the company

[Nixon Williams]

Do bicycles incur BIK? Why would a motorbike be different to a pushiron?

No, the Cycle To Work Scheme exempts it as a Benefit In Kind:

1. The bike and related equipment must be owned by the company
   
2. The bike is used primarily for qualifying journeys
   
3. Ownership of the equipment is not transferred to the employee during the loan period
   
4. The offer of the use of a loaned or provided cycle is available across the whole workforce.

A qualifying journey for an employee means a journey, or part of a journey, between his/her home and workplace or between one workplace and another, that is in connection with the performance of their duties of employment.

Primarily means more than 50% of the use of the cycle and safety equipment must involve a qualifying journey.

Employees do not need to keep logs of the journeys but it must be made clear that a taxable benefit will arise if the cycle/equipment is not used primarily for qualifying journeys.

Our advice would be to still keep logs for all cycle/equipment
use just in case HMRC were to investigate, so that you could easily prove they were primarily used for qualifying journeys.

Alan

[northernladuk]

No, the Cycle To Work Scheme exempts it as a Benefit In Kind:

1. The bike and related equipment must be owned by the company
   
2. The bike is used primarily for qualifying journeys
   
3. Ownership of the equipment is not transferred to the employee during the loan period
   
4. The offer of the use of a loaned or provided cycle is available across the whole workforce.

A qualifying journey for an employee means a journey, or part of a journey, between his/her home and workplace or between one workplace and another, that is in connection with the performance of their duties of employment.

Primarily means more than 50% of the use of the cycle and safety equipment must involve a qualifying journey.

Employees do not need to keep logs of the journeys but it must be made clear that a taxable benefit will arise if the cycle/equipment is not used primarily for qualifying journeys.

Our advice would be to still keep logs for all cycle/equipment
use just in case HMRC were to investigate, so that you could easily prove they were primarily used for qualifying journeys.

Alan

LTD's do not need to sign up to the cycle to work scheme? Buy the bike and loan it to yourself until you sell I thought.

[Clare@InTouch]

Do bicycles incur BIK? Why would a motorbike be different to a pushiron?

Not pushbikes, but a motorbike would :-)

As NW says there's a cycle to work scheme for bikes, but motorbikes just come under use of company assets.

[Nixon Williams]

LTD's do not need to sign up to the cycle to work scheme? Buy the bike and loan it to yourself until you sell I thought.

You can do that, usually the Cycle to Work Scheme works in that the employer buys the bike and loans it to the employee, who sacrifices part of their salary to effectively pay for the bike.

There is no need to do that, the employer can, as we do with some of our staff, buy the bike and loan it to employees with no salary sacrifice needed.

So for contractors, they can buy the bike and loan it any employee, provided you comply with the rules of the Cycle to Work Scheme you will be fine.

Alan

[SimonMac]

Interesting...and I've been trying to find the stuff on low emission cars too; what you can buy, how much is deductable, etc etc, but couldn't find that one...any ideas?

Congrats on the award btw (he said bowing and scraping)

This one is a bit better:

http://forums.contractoruk.com/busin...-used-car.html

Basically if you buy a car that is lower than 110g/co2 per KM you can offset 100% of the purchase price, otherwise its about 20%. I am very seriously looking at getting the Volvo V50 DRIVe which seems to tick all my boxes having 3 kids

[Wanderer]

Don't forget the benefit in kind - 20% of market value. Nicely different to cars which are always based on list value :-)

Do my calculations make sense then?

Also, can you explain the BIK. Is this if the director uses the bike for non business use? How is it calculated?

[Dearnla]

When I bought my £8k motorbike through the company, I couldn't claim the VAT back as it is a Company owned asset that I have private use of. It's patently not a JCB that I use in the course of my business digging holes and therefore is a perk.

However, I can claim the running costs of it through the Co. but I pay a BIK on my personal tax of £420 a year for the privilege. The BIK is 20% of MARKET value, but there's also an element of the running costs to go into that.

If I was to look at a £12k motorbike, it starts to get to the point of not being worth it compared to buying a Company Car with low emissions.

[Wanderer]

When I bought my £8k motorbike through the company, I couldn't claim the VAT back as it is a Company owned asset that I have private use of. It's patently not a JCB that I use in the course of my business digging holes and therefore is a perk.

Depends on what you use the bike for. If you are within the 2 year rule for travel expenses and the bike is used for commuting to work and little else then it's allowable against VAT is my understanding.

However, I can claim the running costs of it through the Co. but I pay a BIK on my personal tax of £420 a year for the privilege. The BIK is 20% of MARKET value, but there's also an element of the running costs to go into that.

Can someone explain how that works? If my LTD brought a bike which was mostly for private use (I've been on site over 24 months so can't claim commuting) and I put all the running expenses through the company including safety equipment, fuel, servicing and insurance. What is the value for BIK?

If I was to look at a £12k motorbike, it starts to get to the point of not being worth it compared to buying a Company Car with low emissions.

Much as I love biking, I'd love to have a car but it's just not practical where I live.

[smalik]

Help with Insurance

Dear All,

I am a contractor with Ltd. I want to buy a scooter via Ltd to be able to expense it and claim back VAT. My accountant told me that I have to have the scooter registered in Ltd name to be able to claim. The scooter dealer says that if the scooter is bought in Ltd name then the insurance I have to provide to them at the time of purchase to drive off should be in Ltd name - I cant seem to find any insurance company who can insure the scooter (Piaggio Mp3 LT 500 Sport) in Ltd name and put me down as a named driver. Can you please advise?

Thank you.

[eek]

Dear All,

The scooter dealer says that if the scooter is bought in Ltd name then the insurance I have to provide to them at the time of purchase to drive off should be in Ltd name

Thank you.

Try another dealer?