Bike to work

mashton

But the general agreement is that at the end of the scheme (12 months) they will either give you the bike or sell it to you for a nominal 'market value' which is often quoted at 5% of the purchase price.

Here, I beleive, they just give you the bike.

Of course, if they are getting nerky you could say it was stolen, just before getting another one on the next year's scheme.

If they give you the bike, it is a benefit in kind and would need to be reported on your P11D (assuming you are not a low paid employee for BIK purposes. I'm not sure of the legality of the claiming the bike was stolen thing (by which I mean the tax implications, not theft implications).

For those of you that are self-employed (or in a partnership) you are able to buy a bike through your business and claim capital allowances on it as you would any other plant & machinery.

As an aside, it sounds dodgy that an employer would reclaim the VAT on the bike, but not passing the saving on to you. Any amounts deducted from your gross salary in excess of the purchase price (net of VAT) would reduce the deduction that they could make from their profits in calculating the amount assessable to tax.