Anyone with experience of Personal Contract Hire?

Anyone with experience of Personal Contract Hire?

Author
Discussion

robbo1

Original Poster:

842 posts

289 months

Thursday 23rd October 2003
quotequote all
My company car is up for renewal soon, and due to the lack of choice one of the options I'm considering is Personal Contract Hire.
My budget would be around £350/month (but this would have to include insurance as well).
Will I have to pay VAT on the contract?
How much would maintenance/penalties for excess mileage be?
Anyone have any tips or good/bad experiences? Any advice gratefully received.

eric mc

122,855 posts

272 months

Thursday 23rd October 2003
quotequote all
Why is VAT an issue? Are you a registered trader who can claim back VAT on your costs?

VAT is normally charges on contract hire type repayments - although certain types of leasing charges are outside the scope for VAT purposes. If your contract hire agreement also includes maintenance charges (as some do), VAT will be added on to these maintenance chrges.

steviebee

13,570 posts

262 months

Thursday 23rd October 2003
quotequote all
We've recently started paying a car allaowance rather than providing a company car. For those that recieve it, there are a numbver of benefits:

Firstly, increased choice. Company rules stipulate that the car can be up to 3 years old and so we have chaps driing round in Mercs and the like when they would otherwise be in Focuses.

Tax. Whist you still get clobbered, it's a bit better than the "cash equivelent" calculation.

VAT: You can only claim any VAT element s if you are registered - not if you are an employee, although your employer may allow you to put reapirs and the like throughthe company to avoid VAT.

£350.00 should put you in new Mondeo Zetec territory!

eric mc

122,855 posts

272 months

Thursday 23rd October 2003
quotequote all
If your employer allows you to put YOUR car repair and maintenance costs through HIS company so HE can claim back the Input VAT - you are both colluding in a VAT fraud, which is an offence.

If your employer is genuinely paying for YOUR car's repair and maintenance costs, he CAN reclaim the VAT legitimately but you would be taxed on the resulting Benefit in Kind.

CVP

2,799 posts

282 months

Friday 24th October 2003
quotequote all
Robbo

I have a similar situation on my Leon.
The company paid me a car allowance and this went through as salary so I paid my tax and NI on that.

I then went and took out a personal lease contract with a seperatre unrelated company and pay them a monthly rental. Due to the size of the deal between my old company and the leasing firm I did not have to pay any deposit either.

The invoice I receive is split between a finance element (i.e. the repayment & interest) and a maintenance element. I'll check but I think it's only the maintenanc element that has VAT added to it, so I don't pay too much VAT.

No company car tax as I have been taxed on the payment to me in my salary.

Companies need to get a lot smarter about the benefit options they make available to staff. This was a relatively simple deal and means I can still get a fully maintained car at a lower overall cost to me than if the company had directly provided the car. From the company point of view they can do away with the fleet management support as this is all taken on by the leasing firm. All the company has to do is go to one of the major firms and say "I've got 8 thousand staff wanting cars, give me a good finance rate".

My rental does not include insurance.

At the end of the contract I have the option of either
a) handing the keys back and walking away, or
b) buying the car at the residual value agreed when I took out the contract.

At present option (b)is coming out the better for me.

Chris