Content
Brave New World
Business Not Pleasure
Summertime Blues
All That Glitters...
Casting The Net
Trust Gordon?
It Ain't Over...
One In The Eye
Keep Your Nose Clean
Foreign Affairs
When Is A Car...
Don't Walk Away
Avoiding, The Issue
Brown Is Anti-PC
VAT's Up Doc?
Fuel's Gold
An Age-old Question?
That's Unfair!
Year In Year Out
How Hard To Try?
It's A Rip-Off!
Outlaws Win
Show Some Restraint
Not Our Problem
They Cannot Be Serious?
Merry-Go-Round
Pension Disappointments
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...not a car? When it's an office! That was the taxpayer's argument in a recent tax case. A company director found it difficult to climb the stairs to the office above the company's shop, so the company bought him a motorhome which he used most of the time as a mobile office. He tried to argue that he should not be taxed on it as a company car, because it wasn't used for that purpose - or, if there was a tax charge, it should be reduced to a small percentage of a full year's rate because the vehicle was an office for so much of the time. Sadly, this cut no ice with either the Appeal Commissioners or the High Court judge. The law treats a few things as "not cars" - vans are taxed differently, for example - but this was a car under the rules. The tax charge doesn't depend on what you actually use it for - it's due if the car is "made available" by your employer. If you want to avoid the charge, you have to show that it was not actually available - for example, if you are going on holiday for at least 30 days, you can return the car to the office and hand over the keys, and you will save a little tax as a result. Working in the car outside the office doesn't count. |
© Bayar Hughes & Co., 2010.