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Cycle to work scheme

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swalld	02 Sep 07:25
Joined: 03 Jul 2009 Posts: 41 Bike: My Profile	Hi Anyone else see the news that the new government are going to change the contract for the cycle to work scheme so a lesser tax gain is made. I think the final payment will change so everyone will have to pay more. The article made it sound like even people on the scheme now will be affected which i find amazing as a contract was made.

Andrea67	02 Sep 08:28
Joined: 14 Jul 2010 Posts: 17 Bike: My Profile	Oh no just my luck!!! i'm just about to get a new bike on the scheme, (Saturday can't wait) I was really pleased with the saving I've made.....hope you're wrong.
My Latest Route: Sep 2010 Scarcroft to Thorner and Collingham Loop

soren	02 Sep 14:54
Joined: 09 Jan 2010 Posts: 90 Bike: My Profile	Typical of this so called government,Hit the poorest the hardest and leave the well off well alone. THEY MAKE ME SICK.

bubbajones	02 Sep 18:24
Joined: 02 Mar 2010 Posts: 9 Bike: My Profile	Suely they can't make changes to the amount you pay for the final 'purchase' payment? I am sure mine is already set in the contract I have with my employer but then I may be wrong. Swindling beggers the lot of 'em :(
My Latest Route: Mar 2010 Wendover to Long Crendon Loop

swalld	03 Sep 11:30
Joined: 03 Jul 2009 Posts: 41 Bike: My Profile	I also can't believe they can change a current contract but this is what the paper implied. I asked my employer to look into it - I only have 2 months left on mine so can't imagine them doing anything about it that quickly.

davedenday49	12 Sep 11:38
Joined: 22 Oct 2009 Posts: 13 Bike: My Profile	My mountain bike cost me Â£300.00 i paid back just over Â£ 21.00 a month then at the end of the twelve months i paid e fee of about Â£ 9.00( this is to say you are now the rightfull owner of your bike and the company you work for ), all together i paid just Â£269.00 saveing Â£ 31.00. I am now getting another bike ( Giant defy 2 2011 ) next month....Dave.

davediver	14 Sep 08:12
Joined: 16 Oct 2008 Posts: 14 Bike: My Profile	I have tried to pursuade my employer to take up the scheme to take advantage of the tax breaks but they just say that the scheme would be too costly to implement. Could this be true are are they just being spoil sports?
My Latest Route: Jul 2009 Strines Inn Circular

geeka	14 Sep 08:54
Joined: 06 Apr 2010 Posts: 50 Bike: My Profile	why dont we start an on line petition or a facebook group and spread the word. this is wrong.

davedenday49	15 Sep 12:05
Joined: 22 Oct 2009 Posts: 13 Bike: My Profile	It is all wrong at the end of the day its the employee who pays for the bike out of his or her wages and not the employer.

Ghedebrav	06 Oct 07:52
Joined: 11 Mar 2009 Posts: 6 Bike:	If you're already in a contract then this will stay the same. Also, it will be probably be a few months before any changes actually come into effect (so get going if you haven't already done it!). And even with less saving, it will still be worthwhile - even as an effectively interest-free loan with no saving at all it would still make sense. By the way, I made the last monthly payment out of my wages just before getting a new job at a different company. Therefore I haven't made any final payment to actually 'own' the bike. I'm generally an honest soul so would like to sort this out, but the HR at my old place were/are insanely chaotic at best and I can't really be bothered with a load of hassle for the sake of giving them twenty-odd quid to cover a formality. Has anyone else changed jobs part-way through paying for the scheme, or been in a similar situation to me? What would you do?!

Ghedebrav

06 Oct 07:52

Joined: 11 Mar 2009

Posts: 6

Bike:

If you're already in a contract then this will stay the same. Also, it will be probably be a few months before any changes actually come into effect (so get going if you haven't already done it!). And even with less saving, it will still be worthwhile - even as an effectively interest-free loan with no saving at all it would still make sense.

By the way, I made the last monthly payment out of my wages just before getting a new job at a different company. Therefore I haven't made any final payment to actually 'own' the bike. I'm generally an honest soul so would like to sort this out, but the HR at my old place were/are insanely chaotic at best and I can't really be bothered with a load of hassle for the sake of giving them twenty-odd quid to cover a formality.

Has anyone else changed jobs part-way through paying for the scheme, or been in a similar situation to me? What would you do?!

gavennymatt	07 Oct 05:56
Joined: 07 Oct 2010 Posts: 6 Bike:	i work for the fire service and they have stopped doing the sceme it is being taken over by "cycle scheme" and all deals applied for upto the 20th of sept was on the old scheme and will be honoured, but all after that will be on the new scheme which is a larger end paymet from the old upto 5% value whch is little difference to your monthly payment to what is now a "fair market value" of the bike, who knows how much that will be........If you take the Â£1000 for example you get the bike for roughly 600, after a year of paying for it and keeping it nice, they may decide a fair market value is 600 which means you will have paid more for the bike, hope fully they will be sensible and give you some discount may be 25%...... My advice now is to strike a deal with the shop and they may also do a 0%finance deal, this will give you a better saving i would think. Unless you can get the amount the FMV will be...... This government certainly doesnt like perks for the common man..

gavennymatt

07 Oct 05:56

Joined: 07 Oct 2010

Posts: 6

Bike:

i work for the fire service and they have stopped doing the sceme it is being taken over by "cycle scheme" and all deals applied for upto the 20th of sept was on the old scheme and will be honoured, but all after that will be on the new scheme which is a larger end paymet from the old upto 5% value whch is little difference to your monthly payment to what is now a "fair market value" of the bike, who knows how much that will be........If you take the Â£1000 for example you get the bike for roughly 600, after a year of paying for it and keeping it nice, they may decide a fair market value is 600 which means you will have paid more for the bike, hope fully they will be sensible and give you some discount may be 25%...... My advice now is to strike a deal with the shop and they may also do a 0%finance deal, this will give you a better saving i would think. Unless you can get the amount the FMV will be......
This government certainly doesnt like perks for the common man..

Ghedebrav	07 Oct 07:25
Joined: 11 Mar 2009 Posts: 6 Bike:	Wow - they moved fast. And so a cheap and succesful scheme, with benefits ranging from supporting small businesses to improving public health (not to mention reducing traffic & pollution) bites the dust. A very disappointing move from a government claiming to be 'progressive', Boris or no Boris. Mind you, I've always believed that cycling tends to bring out the little anarchist that lives inside us all, and governments generally like people to behave predictably and dependently, like the inmates queueing up at medication time in 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest'. They want us all either to be slaves to the financial demands of a car (fuel, insurance, MOT, parking, etc.) or lining up like zombies on overcrowded, expensive and slow public transport. Cyclists, like allotment holders, are dangerously free-spirited and therefore are not to be encouraged. Ahem. Ranting conspiracy theory over.

Ghedebrav

07 Oct 07:25

Joined: 11 Mar 2009

Posts: 6

Bike:

Wow - they moved fast.

And so a cheap and succesful scheme, with benefits ranging from supporting small businesses to improving public health (not to mention reducing traffic & pollution) bites the dust. A very disappointing move from a government claiming to be 'progressive', Boris or no Boris.

Mind you, I've always believed that cycling tends to bring out the little anarchist that lives inside us all, and governments generally like people to behave predictably and dependently, like the inmates queueing up at medication time in 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest'. They want us all either to be slaves to the financial demands of a car (fuel, insurance, MOT, parking, etc.) or lining up like zombies on overcrowded, expensive and slow public transport. Cyclists, like allotment holders, are dangerously free-spirited and therefore are not to be encouraged.

Ahem. Ranting conspiracy theory over.

gogogadget	08 Oct 16:58
Joined: 08 Oct 2010 Posts: 4 Bike:	the FMV has been set at 18% after the first year for a bike that retailed at Â£500 so that would be Â£90 at the end of the 1st year, think its 21% for a bike retailing at a higher price than this. if you have a good employer there are ways round this, HMRC is only wantig the tax on the FMV so the employer gets the rest for setting it up!! so if youve a good employer hopefully they will only charge you the tax on the FMV of Â£90. other way round it is there is set FMV for the bike as it gets older 1st yr 18%, 2nd yr 16%, 3rd yr 8%, 4th yr 3% and 5th yr 0%. so if you agree with your employer to pay the final FMV when you leave the company it will be greatly reduced,if you stay the full 5 year you wont have to pay a thing which will make it cheaper than the original scheme!! the company i work for are just setting the scheme up now, mega problems because they hav'nt got a clue, at the minute they're not even giving us our VAT back!! hope this helps.

gogogadget

08 Oct 16:58

Joined: 08 Oct 2010

Posts: 4

Bike:

the FMV has been set at 18% after the first year for a bike that retailed at Â£500 so that would be Â£90 at the end of the 1st year, think its 21% for a bike retailing at a higher price than this. if you have a good employer there are ways round this, HMRC is only wantig the tax on the FMV so the employer gets the rest for setting it up!! so if youve a good employer hopefully they will only charge you the tax on the FMV of Â£90. other way round it is there is set FMV for the bike as it gets older 1st yr 18%, 2nd yr 16%, 3rd yr 8%, 4th yr 3% and 5th yr 0%. so if you agree with your employer to pay the final FMV when you leave the company it will be greatly reduced,if you stay the full 5 year you wont have to pay a thing which will make it cheaper than the original scheme!! the company i work for are just setting the scheme up now, mega problems because they hav'nt got a clue, at the minute they're not even giving us our VAT back!! hope this helps.

Outrunner	11 Oct 03:31
Joined: 26 May 2010 Posts: 57 Bike: My Profile	Here is a flowchart of the scheme http://emails.cyclescheme.co.uk/files/mvflowchart.pdf

txbnet	21 Oct 16:53
Joined: 29 Jun 2010 Posts: 149 Bike: My Profile	We run the scheme at our small office. Strangely as I am self employed I cannot get a bike myself, but one of our valued staff now has a new Giant MTB which she loves. Just to correct an earlier post, the employer does have upfront costs, because the whole price of the bike has to be paid by the employer to the scheme operator. The Scheme Operator then issues the chosen retailer and the employee with a voucher entitling the employee to pick up the bike. As a small business, it is helpful to spread out the requests for bikes, otherwise your cash flow suffers! We can claim back the VAT and then pay slightly reduced stamp and tax for the employee I think. But there's no fantastic advantage for the firm, but its a good perk for the valued staff member so maybe we gain some loyalty and some fitter staff into the bargain! But at least the last government made an attempt to help more people into cycling so hats off to them for that. Any changes to the final payment would only apply to contracts made after the announcement, it can't be retrospective otherwise loads of contracts would be torn up. In any event it should be a very small change to the final payment, I would have thought still well worth an employee buying a bike this way rather than stumping up in full at the shop or taking on a credit agreement.
My Latest Route: Jan 2011 Whitley Bay to Bellingham

txbnet

21 Oct 16:53

Joined: 29 Jun 2010

Posts: 149

Bike:

My Profile

We run the scheme at our small office. Strangely as I am self employed I cannot get a bike myself, but one of our valued staff now has a new Giant MTB which she loves. Just to correct an earlier post, the employer does have upfront costs, because the whole price of the bike has to be paid by the employer to the scheme operator. The Scheme Operator then issues the chosen retailer and the employee with a voucher entitling the employee to pick up the bike.

As a small business, it is helpful to spread out the requests for bikes, otherwise your cash flow suffers!

We can claim back the VAT and then pay slightly reduced stamp and tax for the employee I think. But there's no fantastic advantage for the firm, but its a good perk for the valued staff member so maybe we gain some loyalty and some fitter staff into the bargain!

But at least the last government made an attempt to help more people into cycling so hats off to them for that. Any changes to the final payment would only apply to contracts made after the announcement, it can't be retrospective otherwise loads of contracts would be torn up. In any event it should be a very small change to the final payment, I would have thought still well worth an employee buying a bike this way rather than stumping up in full at the shop or taking on a credit agreement.

My Latest Route: Jan 2011 Whitley Bay to Bellingham

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