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Spring Statement 2019 Summary

The wait for clarity on WLTP and future BIK rates goes on... Yesterday's Spring Statement by the Chancellor offered few clues as to exactly when the government will put an end to the damaging uncertainty around WLTP and company car tax rates after 2021. A written statement from the Treasury stated only that the government will announce its response to its recent consultation on the impacts of WLTP on BIK 'in the coming months'. We expect the

Can businesses cut travel by 25% in the next five years?

By Paul Hollick. It's possible. But be careful how you go about it. With so many businesses scouring their bottom lines for cost savings in the current climate, I wasn’t surprised to see that a recent survey found a significant proportion of companies actively seeking to cut their business travel. Half of 250+car fleets and six out of ten 100-250-car fleets told Sewells, the fleet analysts, they believed they could reduce business travel b

Will the government undo its damaging company car tax policies in 2019?

Welcome to a 'baffling' and 'bonkers' 2019. I wish I were being flippant, but I'm not. Those are words recently applied by the SMMT and ACFO, respectively, to the government's peremptory changes to plug-in grants last October. They illustrate the industry's mounting frustration at the damaging disparity between the government's badly thought-out changes to fleet/motoring taxes and its goals for green mobility and a healthy automotive sector

Fleets and the company car business urgently need to change their approach to plug-in hybrids

by Paul Hollick No-one in the fleet industry should have been surprised by the high-profile BBC News story last weekend about the misuse of government-subsidised plug-in hybrid cars. In case you missed the story, TMC analysed real-world mpg data on thousands of company-run PHEVs for the BBC. Our figures show that the average PHEV drinks a gallon of fuel every 39.3 miles. That's 90 mpg less than the average advertised consumption and sign

Where next for fleets after the Budget?

By Paul Hollick You don’t often hear an entire industry say “Whaaaat?!” but that is pretty much what happened after the Budget on October 29. Fleets are justifiably angry and frustrated at being kept waiting for clarity on future company car tax (CCT) rates. The Government will say the delay is all for the long term best. WLTP has turned into a worldwide lesson on the law of unintended consequences, so it’s right to rev

UK government could bring in monthly rises in fuel duty from next year

By Paul Hollick Despite the Prime Minister's high-profile party conference promise to keep fuel duty frozen in the Budget, higher rates may still be on their way. A highly influential think-tank, the Institute for Fiscal Studies, has just said the government should look at uprating fuel duty in line with inflation every month. The IFS says its idea would allow the government to steadily – others might say stealthily – recoup the £9b

Company car alternatives are back on the agenda.

Until the UK government started tinkering with the well-established car BIK regime in 2015, traditional company car benefits had enjoyed several years of stability. The number of car tax payers had settled at just below a million drivers. They could count on predictable tax liability because average CO2 emissions kept on falling, which offset the steady annual tightening in the BIK scales. What could go wrong? Well, not only did the governm

Do we need to ‘save’ the company car?

Company cars. Polar bears. Uber in London. RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire. What do they all have in common? Well, for one thing, they all currently have online petitions demanding government action to save them. Fleet World magazine recently posted a company car tax petition to Parliament as part of their ongoing campaign to save the company car. It hopes to attract 10,000 signatures demanding reform of BIK for diesel and ultra-low emission v

Bumpy ride for fleets over WLTP is set to continue into next year, by Paul Hollick

”The story that is emerging feels like a plot that was initially looking like a thriller and is now transforming into a ghastly horror film” The Insider, Fleet World magazine. Progress in the switch-over to the new WLTP international vehicle emissions test might well be characterised by Donald Rumsfeld’s famous quote about “known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns”. The “known knowns” include the WLTP CO2 figure for m

Are you ready for International Driving Permits?

The UK Government hasn’t made plans to meet demand for IDPs if UK licences stop being valid for Europe next year As things stand in the Brexit negotiations, UK driving licences will cease to be valid in Europe from 11pm on 29 March next year. Unless the UK government reaches a specific agreement with Brussels before then, drivers with a UK licence will need to obtain an International Driving Permit (IDP) before they can drive legally or h

All taxed-up and nowhere to go. What HMRC’s new report says about the future of company cars.

The UK taxman’s latest report on benefit-in-kind tax does not look good for the future of company cars. Or for government revenues. It reveals that the £2.5 billion the government gets each year from car, van and fuel benefits is now in danger of drying up. The reasons are a mix of short-sighted increases in BIK rates, ‘dieselgate’ and new emissions tests. These are sending company car drivers up a cul-de-sac where they can no longer

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