bike4work scheme

Mr. Peri Peri

Mr. Peri Peri

Mr. Peri Peri

Associate
Joined
23 May 2011
Posts
355
Location
Surrey
Does anyone else's employer take part in the bike4work scheme?

It's about that time of year to pick a bike and sign up so was wondering if anyone else was and what bikes people are picking.
 
I live 35 miles from work, work offered it to me as i think they got some sort of tax break out of it. I chose a diamond back £1.1k mountain bike with the intention not to cycle 65 miles round trip on it. It jan next year apparently it's all mine.

No idea how the normal system works but I'm not going to ask questions :p nothing really change in my payslip :)

I think the norm is company will front a lot of the cost but a small percentage of cost may come out out of your deductions. I am not 100% sure
 
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How?

My old man is a fireman and an avid cyclist.

Last time he did bike4work he got a bike cheaper but ended up with about 70% of the cost to pay.
 
Careful with the bike4work scheme...really not as good as it used to be and it actually worked out cheaper for me to get my bike in a 10% sale.

The buyback charge at the end of the scheme has been increased massively.
 
That is the only part I wasn't sure of.. the charge at the end. It doesn't really specify how much it will be but only that it will be based upon the current market value of the bike :confused:

I would get the money for the bike deducted from my pay over 12 months pre tax and NI. For a bike around £800 I think it is ~£35 a month, but then there will be whatever the final charge is at the end of the 3 year period.
 
Aye that's right but they now assume current market value to be 20-28% of original value. Thus depending on how much tax you pay you can end up paying more for the bike.
 
Yup - read my thread here:-

http://www.pedelecs.co.uk/forum/electric-bicycles/9442-new-build.html

Dis86 said:
Careful with the bike4work scheme...really not as good as it used to be and it actually worked out cheaper for me to get my bike in a 10% sale.

The buyback charge at the end of the scheme has been increased massively.
Click to expand...

My company does theirs through cyclescheme.co.uk and the've just written to me with my "settlement" figure which is £55 - that's
9.1% of the original purchase price (£600)
 
Then you got off very lightly! Perhaps your employer wasn't as strict in applying the rules. Think they're actually on the HMRC website somewhere.
 
We have the scheme at work and most who are buying seem to be getting the Giant Defy1.
I'm however too lazy to peddle and enjoy driving too much.
 
amigafan2003 said:
My company does theirs through cyclescheme.co.uk and the've just written to me with my "settlement" figure which is £55 - that's
9.1% of the original purchase price (£600)
Click to expand...

The idea was that your employer purchase it through the scheme and you do a form of hire purchase agreement with them via salary sacrifice, but the sum is deducted from your taxable wage, so although you do pay the purchase price back, plus the final 5% "fair market value", the idea was that a) you can buy expensive bike straight away, as it's on loan, b) you pay marginally less tax (about £25 a month on a grand worth of bike).

This of course was momentarily exploited by just about every bike shop in UK and most not only don't honour sale or special prices on bikes that go through the scheme which you could otherwise purchase via one of those never ending sale or price matching if you paid in cash, but most also charge higher prices for the scheme purchases, thus eating into your supposed sheme savings:

cyclescheme.jpg
 
Dis86 said:
Then you got off very lightly! Perhaps your employer wasn't as strict in applying the rules. Think they're actually on the HMRC website somewhere.
Click to expand...

Well, they outsource all the admin to cyclescheme.co.uk so my employer really has no involvement.


v0n said:
The idea was that your employer purchase it through the scheme and you do a form of hire purchase agreement with them via salary sacrifice, but the sum is deducted from your taxable wage, so although you do pay the purchase price back, plus the final 5% "fair market value", the idea was that a) you can buy expensive bike straight away, as it's on loan, b) you pay marginally less tax (about £25 a month on a grand worth of bike).

This of course was momentarily exploited by just about every bike shop in UK and most not only don't honour sale or special prices on bikes that go through the scheme which you could otherwise purchase via one of those never ending sale or price matching if you paid in cash, but most also charge higher prices for the scheme purchases, thus eating into your supposed sheme savings:

cyclescheme.jpg
Click to expand...

Well, the bike was discounted to £600 (local lbs, 5 min walk from my house) from £700 (new models due in about a month after I was looking to purchase) and my salary sacrifice mount is £60 a month for 10 months with a final settlement of £55 and then the bike is mine - so that is £655 in total. But as the 10*£60 is pre-tax that effectively equals £414 post tax hence a £600 bike has cost me £469 - or £78% of cost new with the added bonus of spreading the payments over 10 months.

I did try Evans but they wouldn't honour their discounts so someone else got my business.
 
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I'm interested in this 52% off sounds nice, thing is you have to cycle to work 50% of time but I work from home :p

the 52% is tax and NI but thought you got VAT off too but can't see that

re buy fee this is from ours

You will have the option to buy the bike at market value (25% of the bike's initial cost for bikes over £500 or 18% for bikes less than £500) or extend the hire term for a further 3 years (with no further payments), which would reduce the market value amount to 7% or 3% of the bike's initial cost
 
Yes, just got me a cboardman hybrid pro. At the end of the year I can give the bike back and pay a £150 administration fee :eek: or pay 40% tax on the 25% of value= £100 err.. no brainer.
 
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