Anybody used cycle scheme?

[gareth h]

Somebody mentioned this to me the other day, seems you can buy a £1000 bike with vat/paye tax relief, only costs £42/month for 12 months (£500 ish).
Any catches?

[pdV6]

From memory, points to watch out for are:

- Its a salary sacrifice scheme, so take care if you have any other benefits that would suffer as a result of reduced salary (e.g. pension, maternity pay etc).
- The highest savings only apply if you're in the 40% tax band.
- The highest savings can only be realised if the employer passes on the benefit of recovering the VAT to the employee.
- The bike belongs to the employer and is hired by the employee until the cost is paid off.
- At the end of the hire period, the employer can choose to sell the bike to the employee for a "fair" sum - but this can't officially be agreed in advance as it would invalidate the scheme.
- I think there's a sneaky restriction like the employee needs to use the bike for part of at least 50% of their journeys to work (although who's going to check?)

[Black5]

Any more info?

[Rico]

Google

http://www.cyclescheme.co.uk/

[MTY4000]

I think if you leave your employer before the 'hire contract' is complete you have to pay the full cost of the bike. May be wrong though.. can anyone confirm?

[MTY4000]

Answered my own question re: leaving your employer (via Rico's link): "The outstanding balances will be deducted from your final net salary payment as a termination fee. Settlement will be from net pay because once you leave; you also leave the bike scheme, and are no longer eligible for tax deductions"

So when you leave your employer you settle the remaining payments - without the tax deduction benefit.

[taffyracer]

I'm looking into setting up a ride to work scheme next week, think it's a cracking idea, needed a way to increase my exercise levels and lose weight anyway and i was about to spend 1k on a bike anyway, now it's £500 - superb!

[Pappa Lurve]

Bought a bike on it a couple of weeks ago. Few things to consider. There are different versions which all amount to the same thing but you can't buy the bike from all stores. For example, the one I am on meant I could not buy from Evans but could buy from Cycle Surgery. Check the bike shops where you live for the scheme they are on as there are at least 2.

The one my compnay is on was pretty good but took them over a week to process. Would have been longer but I am very fortunate in that our HR and finance depts are really good so they hassled them to sort it out rapidly.

Got all the blurb from my one so if you want, send me your email addy and I'll forward you the info they sent.

FWIW - if you based in London, I can't recommend Cycle Surgery enough, espcially the one in Camden. They got the bike I wanted despite Specialised being out of stock until October and not a single store having the bike in, and phoned about ten or twelve places to find it!

Takes around 2 weeks from when you order the bike for the vouchers to come.

Generally though, it' a brilliant way to buy a bike. If they sorted the weather out so I could have ridden this weekend it would have been better though but they where utterly unhelpful on that front!