Posted By Ron Impey I'm about to become more 'peripathetic' and the employer is insisting I receive a company car. I do not want or need a car for my own personal use. Advice please on any ways of avoiding getting hammered for income tax on the unwanted vehicle.

Posted By Philip Roberts Ron, I was in the same position and I refused to take the car home. I used public transport to get to and from work and just used the company car for company business. This meant no personal tax liability. Hope this is of some assistance regards Phil

Posted By Ron Impey I've also been made home-based; does anyone have any comments on the pros and cons of this?

Posted By Martyn Hendrie If you are going to be home based, have the car and not use it for personal use, you will have to keep very accurate records of all mileage the vehicle does to demonstrate it is all business mileage. Otherwise the tax man will assume you are simply trying to avoid the tax liability. How many mile a year to you expect to do?

Posted By Ron Impey Hi Martyn, I plan to use the car as little as possible. I dislike driving greatly. If I should ever need a car for personal use, I would borrow my wife's; after all I paid for it!! Up till now when I've needed to travel for work, I've gone by train, or when visiting our premises in Northern Ireland or Scotland, flown with Easyjet. Most of the travelling can happily be achieved in this manner, and when I do have a trip which cannot reasonably be done by public transport, I would then hire a car for the duration. With the amount of concern regarding drivers falling asleep at the wheel, this causing more accidents that alcohol, my approach must be a far safer one.

Posted By Stuart Nagle Ask for a van rather than a car. at present these are tax exempt in respect of company vehicle use, but will be subject to tax in the future.

Posted By Anthony Elsmore Ron, May I suggest that you ask your employer to reimburse your travel per mile using your wifes car, as this results in no change in your tax status. You are then complying with your employer i.e. you are able to travel by car when required, while avoiding the unwanted change in tax code. Inland Revenue advice is 40p per mile for the first 10,000 miles and 25p for any additional milage. If you go to the Inland Revenue webpage there is plenty of advice available. If your wifes car is already paid for I would imagine it would actually be quite lucrative to travel in this way. Don't forget to ensure you have business class insurance though.

Posted By Ashley Williams Hi, I agree with the other company car user. I had a company car with fuel card and the tax implications hardly mattered at the end of the day. The way i looked at it is the tax was about what i would have been paying for a new car in loan charges, insurance, road tax and wear and tear on the vehicle. Sure we dont like paying the tx man more than we have to but at the end of the day work out how much your own car costs you and its usually about the same, but with the benefit of knowing if its stolen or damaged you wont have to pay. Ash

Posted By Bob Youel R My friend [a tax inspector & yes my friend] waited outside somebodies home for months to try to catch a person who did not need nor want a car other than for business use. The persons wife moved the car a few feet whilst it was on their drive, so as to get hers out. The car did not even go onto the public road. This one action caused the tax office to insist that the car was used for personal use - the case eventually went to court and the tax office won! - be warned! There are many things a company can do to provide a car for work where it is not taxable to the individual - pool cars are best but you usually find that your fellow employees [car users] have this funny way of wanting their own car so you end up with the same one all the time and again you fall into the trap of having private use of it. There is no reason why a company cannot take on the liability but most just won't.