Company took away fuel card, expect me to pay up front.

Nick1881 · 10 Apr 2021 at 12:15

I have had a company car since 2012 and always had a fuel card, I normally do over 25k miles per year. I paid back my personal fuel at the government rate and was quite happy.

Suddenly they decided we couldn't have fuel cards any more and gave us 2 weeks notice. Now we are expected to pay for the fuel ourselves and claim back at the government rate, then we will be paid back in our next wages, it could be as much as 6 weeks if we miss the cut off.

My car is a 2.0 diesel and the rate is 11p per mile, the trouble is that even if I drive very carefully it seems to cost around 12p per mile. So now with each journey I am left out of pocket. My car is full of tools and equipment for work, this extra weight probably isn't helping.

We complained to our manager and HR and they said they would look into it, but so far have done nothing. We have been providing them with evidence of the actual cost.

Do you think this is fair? How are other companies doing things?

We have company credit cards, but apparently we aren't allowed to pay for fuel for the company car on it, it's against company policy for some reason. For me this would solve the issue and I'd be happy again.

OldKitMan · 10 Apr 2021 at 12:23

Nick1881 said:
We have company credit cards, but apparently we aren't allowed to pay for fuel for the company car on it, it's against company policy for some reason. For me this would solve the issue and I'd be happy again.

The logical thing to do would be to change this company policy, unfortunately your car probably falls just into the 11p advisory fuel rate and not the 12p one so you're going to lose out slightly over the year based on your estimations. Maybe with the withdrawal of fuel cards the company policy will also be updated.

Randomface74 · 10 Apr 2021 at 12:24

Whether it's a fair way of doing things or not, it's essentially a pay cut for you. So I'd be responding along the lines of "no I won't take a pay cut, here's my notice" and then they'll fix it because it's cheaper to fix it than hire someone new.

Nick1881 · 10 Apr 2021 at 12:26

OldKitMan said:
The logical thing to do would be to change this company policy, unfortunately your car probably falls just into the 11p advisory fuel rate and not the 12p one so you're going to lose out slightly over the year based on your estimations. Maybe with the withdrawal of fuel cards the company policy will also be updated.

I would hope they update the policy but it doesn't seem like that is their intention.

It's even worse for my colleague, his car is a 1600 diesel so the rate is only 8p, but his car seems to do similar mpg to mine. He didn't get to pick the car either as it was allocated to him.

Kenai · 10 Apr 2021 at 13:07

billysielu said:
Whether it's a fair way of doing things or not, it's essentially a pay cut for you. So I'd be responding along the lines of "no I won't take a pay cut, here's my notice" and then they'll fix it because it's cheaper to fix it than hire someone new.

Or maybe they won't and then he's out of a job, especially so if it's a larger company and they're expecting savings across many drivers, they'd probably just accept the notice rather than reverse the policy for the entire company.

Rotty · 10 Apr 2021 at 13:08

we have to pay up front

just use a credit card and pay off when you get paid

those rates are horrible though

we get about 17p a mile

Kenai · 10 Apr 2021 at 13:12

Rotty said:
we have to pay up front

just use a credit card and pay off when you get paid

those rates are horrible though

we get about 17p a mile

The rates seem to be what our company use too, which are the HMRC advised rates based on expected economy for engine size bands.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/advisory-fuel-rates

I also use a credit card to offset my payments by a month. Grab a cashback paying card and you can recover a little of the lost cost too.

Vanquish-Storm · 10 Apr 2021 at 13:15

What do you use the car for?

If we use our own car we get a set rate based on miles, if we use the company car we fill it and claim the full receipt costs back.

Haggisman · 10 Apr 2021 at 14:00

Drive slower to increase fuel economy. If that means more time spent on the road so you get less work done during working hours, then so be it

Sui · 10 Apr 2021 at 14:16

I'm not sure I follow, if you put £50 of fuel in a company car, you should be claiming £50, not by mile, surely?

Edit: I've never had a company car so getting paid back by mile could well be the 'norm'

Kenai · 10 Apr 2021 at 14:26

Sui said:
I'm not sure I follow, if you put £50 of fuel in a company car, you should be claiming £50, not by mile, surely?

Edit: I've never had a company car so getting paid back by mile could well be the 'norm'

Only 'business miles' can be paid as a tax free expense, not commuting or other private mileage.

They could just pay for all the fuel but the employee would pay a benefit tax for this. It's rare that this arrangement works out sensibly for either the employee or the employer.

lordrobs · 10 Apr 2021 at 14:27

OP - you are in the same situation I've been in for the last 6 years. When I started it was fine as the HMRC rates were more than adequate to cover fuel costs. Weirdly we had a split in the company and our sales guys put fuel on their company credit cards and paid back private miles while we paid upfront and reclaimed. Both departments thought they were getting the better deal... The sales guys seemed to average more speeding tickets than we did

Fast forward through 6 years of ever increasing fantasy fuel economy figures from manufacturers and an annoying swap to a 1395cc petrol Estate car which like you is often loaded with kit and I'm getting reimbursed the same rate as a Toyota Aygo. WLTP testing hasn't really seemed to make much of an impact in bringing those back in line so far unfortunately.

The rates should be due for review in the next month or so [edit - 1st June] and rising fuel prices should see the ppm rate go up. Probably only by a penny per mile though.

jpaul · 10 Apr 2021 at 14:28

the mpg's do sound optimistic if you were driving urban.

might be unfair, but how large is the deficit versus the monetary/wage benefit of the car with maintenance/insurance paid by them.
is the company dogmatic about daily miles too/from their offices.

lordrobs · 10 Apr 2021 at 14:35

jpaul said:
the mpg's do sound optimistic if you were driving urban.

might be unfair, but how large is the deficit versus the monetary/wage benefit of the car with maintenance/insurance paid by them.
is the company dogmatic about daily miles too/from their offices.

That is one way to look at it, another is the company car tax versus your actual cost for something to get you to the office and back if you didn't need the car for work. If my job didn't require a decent sized estate I'd happily have a 10 year old run around to get me to and from work so my 'benefit in kind' is far more costly to me than what I like to refer to as the benefit in reality

I'm sure if the OPs company is making this change then they are looking at costs and business mileage will need to be recorded to the mile.

Journey · 10 Apr 2021 at 14:36

Bin the company car, save the BIK and get an EV?

lordrobs · 10 Apr 2021 at 15:45

Journey said:
Bin the company car, save the BIK and get an EV?

Many people don't have a choice unfortunately. I've asked on two occasions about having a car allowance in place of a company car and got turned down both times. I'll try again when my current car is due for replacement but I pretty much know what the answer will be.

As for EV... EV + estate gives a grand total of one option at the moment.

2004typer · 10 Apr 2021 at 15:48

This is how my employer does it with my company car, we pay up front and claim back our business usage at the current rate.

That's why I changed to a PHEV, probably not useful for somebody who does mega mileage, but my use is lots of local mileage (probably 50 miles a day max).

The PHEV will do 36 miles roughly on electric only, with the rest made up from petrol/hybrid mode, so on a £1 charge and probably around £2 petrol I get 50 - 60 miles, but for this I get to claim back around £6.00, so actually making money using the car.

Obviously, if you do long runs constantly and can't make use of the electric only mode for the majority of the journey the advantage goes rapidly.

chaparral · 10 Apr 2021 at 15:58

Nick1881 said:
My car is a 2.0 diesel and the rate is 11p per mile, the trouble is that even if I drive very carefully it seems to cost around 12p per mile. So now with each journey I am left out of pocket. My car is full of tools and equipment for work, this extra weight probably isn't helping.

WOW only 11p per mile :eek:

My 2.0 petrol giving me 17mpg at the moment in this cold weather i would be stuffed

What about the cost for the car Maintenance do they also expect that out of this 11p per mile ?

Also with company cars are you expected to clean them in the company time or your own time ?

Kenai · 10 Apr 2021 at 16:29

chaparral said:
WOW only 11p per mile My 2.0 petrol giving me 17mpg at the moment in this cold weather i would be stuffed

What about the cost for the car Maintenance do they also expect that out of this 11p per mile ?

Also with company cars are you expected to clean them in the company time or your own time ?

It's a company car, there is no maintenance for the employee to pay.

Quartz · 10 Apr 2021 at 16:50

Nick1881 said:
My car is a 2.0 diesel and the rate is 11p per mile,

What mpg are they expecting? My diesel Skoda Yeti gets 40 mpg (but I barely use it), rising to 49 mpg on motorway runs so 11p per mile doesn't cover the fuel costs.

Can you not speak to your manager and say something along the lines of, "Whatever figures the company are using are not correct for my use case. I am actually getting XX mpg and 11p per mile does not cover the fuel costs." Be sure to provide evidence.