Fuel Card? Worth it!?

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Tue 17 Nov 2015 22:55
Fuel Card? Worth it!? - jamesdriver

So I currently take a cash allowance of £7000 and can claim 45p a mile on business mileage in my own car.

Question is if I switch to the company scheme (need a new car!) can I still claim 45p a mile on business mileage, it seems to me with modern cars pulling in at least 50mpg, this means you could make quite a lot of cash?

(I could take a fuel card, but again it seems unless you do HUGE private mileage and very very little business mileage it just doesn't add up, for example say you do 25,000 private miles a year @ 50mpg, this costs about £2500 at the pumps (109p). Plus lets say you do 5000 business miles again at 50 mpg costs you £500 approx, BUT you claim back the 5000 business miles at 45p to get a cash back of £2250, making a grand total of -£750

VS. take a fuel card, and pay the BIK tax which is going to cost around £1800, making you over £1000 worse off?

(Or do you still need to log mileage if you take a fuel card)

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Tue 17 Nov 2015 23:08
Fuel Card? Worth it!? - RobJP

You'd need to check the details of the company scheme out first. However if you're on a company car then you aren't going to be paid the same - after all, you've not got depreciation, servicing, tyres, repairs, etc to pay out for. That's what that 45p per mile pays for, not just fuel.

In addition (and covered on your other thread) treat all 'official' mpg figures as extremely dubious.

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Tue 17 Nov 2015 23:14
Fuel Card? Worth it!? - Big John

If you are given a company car you are not normally given 45p mile for fuel if you don't take a fuel card . It's usually a much lower rate eg 15p (could be less!)

The 45p rate is supposed to include the other aspects of running a car.

With your high private mileage of 25k (previous thread - why start a new one?) 5000 business miles @.15p (estimate) =£750. £2500 - 750 = £1750

Close to your BIK tax of £1800 and consider will you really get 50mpg - in real life cars get much less than the official mpg (Saying that my Superb 1.9pd did 50mpg)

If do do get 45p mile just for petrol (which I doubt) then that's different although there may be a big tax implication as it's not for your personal car

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Tue 17 Nov 2015 23:15
Fuel Card? Worth it!? - Big John

Stereo...

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Tue 17 Nov 2015 23:17
Fuel Card? Worth it!? - jamesdriver

Thanks guys, thought it was probably too good to be true! :(

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