Company car BIK tax system is unfair and unjust

Published in Fleet News January 2018

Open letter to the Chancellor: “Company car BIK tax system is unfair and unjust”

Dear Chancellor of the Exchequer

The current company car benefit-in-kind (BIK) tax system is unfair, unjust, doesn’t deliver on the Government’s environmental policies and causes problems for employers.

The system is unfair because it requires people to pay the same amount of BIK tax regardless of the benefit they obtain. If two colleagues do identical jobs in identical company cars, but they drive 20,000 and 2,000 private miles a year, the latter will pay 10 times more for those private miles. The tax rules say this is fair because the car is ‘available for their use’. Well, quite a lot of things in life are available for use – Eurostar, Wembley Stadium and my local Italian restaurant come to mind – but in every other case we’re only expected to pay when we actually use these things, not simply because they happen to be there. 

The system is unjust because you have just increased by 50% the planned tax rise for drivers of diesel vehicles from next April. This is just a £365 million tax-grab from company car drivers that will have no impact on the environment.

The system fails to meet your Government’s environmental policies because it encourages employees and employers to abandon diesel and move ‘back’ to petrol, reversing years of excellent progress in reducing CO2 emissions. 

CO2 for newly-registered cars run by British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association (BVRLA) members has risen – yes, risen – for the first time in years, as a result of your vilification of diesel and without regard for the fact that Euro 6 engines are much cleaner than Euro 5. 

The new optional remuneration arrangement (OpRA) rules further undermine your environmental policies, because by taxing an employee on the cash allowance they are entitled to receive rather than the BIK tax on the car they actually choose – as you will if that generates a bigger tax liability – you remove the incentive to choose a low-CO2 car.

As if all this wasn’t bad enough, the current system of sharp tax increases can encourage employees to take cash allowances rather than a company car. But it is easier for a leasing company to ensure a leased car is properly maintained, repaired, MOT tested, etc, than it is for an employer to manage a similar process for grey fleet cars. 

I’m sure you have people designing a new company car BIK system. Here are some suggestions to consider:

  1.  Make the BIK tax charge reflect the actual benefit to the employee. There are several options; my favourite is to require the employee to certify whether their private mileage has been minimal (say, under 2,000), modest (2,000-5,000), high (5,000-8,000) or very high (more than 8,000). Flex BIK to reflect private use. 
  2. Scrap the 1% increase in the diesel supplement. It is grossly unfair. 
  3. Reverse OpRA. If someone takes the cash, tax them on that allowance. If they take a company car, tax them on the benefit-in-kind. 
  4. Change the ‘appropriate percentage’ for zero emission cars. It is daft to have a system that will rise from this year’s 9%, to 13% next year and 16% the year after, then reduce to 2%. What message does that send? If you want to encourage the take-up on new EVs, change the percentage to 2% from April 2018.
  5. Fix appropriate percentages. The current system increases BIK by more than inflation every year. If I had chosen a 105g/km petrol car early in 2017, I’ll have been taxed at 20% this year, rising to 26% by tax year 2020. That’s a 30% increase. Instead, set appropriate percentages for the duration of the use of the car. If I choose a car based on 20% tax, that should be the appropriate percentage until I hand it back.
  6.  If you really want to encourage the take-up of EVs, tilt the BIK further in favour of low CO2 cars. If someone is foolish, selfish or wealthy enough to opt for a high-CO2 170g/km car, their BIK tax should be based on an appropriate percentage of 45% of the list price.

Now, here’s a more radical proposal: scrap the BIK table. It is way too complicated and is no longer fit for purpose. 

We are keen to reduce CO2 and particulates and nitrogen oxides, and we want to encourage the take-up of EVs. 

So replace the BIK table with a labelling system similar to the EU Energy System. Anyone who has bought a washing machine knows how this works.

A number of parameters are measured, and the device is awarded an energy efficiency class from A-G.

We need a name for this system: let’s call it the Eco-Score system.

To achieve the best scores, a car will need to have low CO2, NOx and particulates emissions, while travelling a fair way on battery only. If it falls short on one or more, it will not score as highly. 

This system allows you to include multiple parameters without confusing fleets. The score will also appear on the V5C. Maybe my employer will say I can’t choose anything scoring less than a C. 

And, if the BIK charge is fixed from day one for the life of the car, I will know exactly how much BIK tax I am going to pay and can plan accordingly. 

Over time, as cars get more CO2-efficient, emit less NOx, travel further under electric power alone, etc, the gradings can be changed but the consumer won’t need to worry about how they are calculated. They’ll just know that Eco-Score A is the best. 

For there to be faith in the system, you would have to commit that any change to Eco-Score, or subsequent change in the underlying measurements, will be revenue-neutral rather than tax-grab. 

These are just some thoughts designed to bring some new thinking to a system that needs to be made fairer for the employee, deliver on the Government’s environmental policies and make life simpler for employers.


P11D prices are ‘out of date’ way of determining company car tax

Colin Tourick quoted in Fleet News, October 2017

Manufacturer discounts of up to 35% on some new cars have called into question the relevance of the P11D price in company car tax calculations.

The P11D value of a company car comprises the list price, including VAT, plus any delivery charges, but does not include the car’s first registration fee or its annual road tax.

However, almost nine out of 10 respondents to a Fleet News poll think the P11D price is failing to reflect the true value of the benefit.

One fleet manager told us: “The only winners with higher P11D prices are the HMRC by getting more revenue from the drivers’ benefit-in-kind (BIK) liability.”

Another said: “The current system is about raising revenue, not assessing the benefit.”

Company car tax was reformed in April 2002 to an emissions-based system, with the charge calculated by applying a percentage figure to the P11D price of the car. The car’s fuel type and CO2 emissions determine the appropriate percentage.

Karen Hilton, head of sales operations at Carwow, told Fleet News the list price is becoming “increasingly obsolete, and not just in the company car market”.

“Dealers make offers across the board, knowing a company car will have tax calculated on the recommended retail price (RRP) makes little sense to the driver,” she said.

On the Carwow site, the most popular company cars include the Audi A3 where the average cash saving to a buyer is around 7%; the BMW 2 Series and 5 Series, which have average RRP savings of 10%; the Mercedes E-Class, where savings average 11%; the VW Passat with savings of between 16% and 19% and the Renault Zoe with savings of up to 35% against the list price.

“However, what is clear is that with offers available almost as standard on some models, the method of calculating tax for company vehicles is out of date viewed against how the market is operating,” said Hilton.

Some manufacturers have moved to make the P11D price more effective for company car drivers. Ford has restructured its Mondeo range – including cutting P11D prices by up to £3,000 – to increase its appeal to fleets and company car drivers by offering more equipment and lower tax bills.

A spokesman said: “More than 85% of Ford Mondeos are driven by professionals as a company car, meaning they pay BIK tax based on its P11D price. 

“To minimise tax liability, prices are reduced by £3,000 (on Vignale), £2,500 (on Zetec and ST-Line Editions) and £2,000 (on Titanium Edition) – meaning savings of up to £720 over three years (on ST-Line Edition 2.0 TDCi 150PS, for 40% tax payer) plus £300 on the employer’s fleet National Insurance (NI) costs.”

He added: “The same analysis is an ongoing process across Ford vehicle lines. Mondeo has highest fleet mix, hence the latest news on it.”

Vauxhall has previously done the same with Insignia, recognising the need to make P11D pricing more attractive to company car drivers.

James Taylor, Vauxhall fleet sales director, said: “We recognise the requirements of both fleet operators and company car drivers and try to ensure the Vauxhall range is optimised  to be competitive on BIK and NI contributions.

“As part of our overall wholelife cost and total cost of ownership strategy, we actively review our pricing and positioning and evaluate those elements affected by P11D in order to be highly competitive. This strategy saw us reduce P11D pricing on like-for-like models when we recently launched the new Insignia. 

“Fleet operators and company car drivers made P11D savings of more than £2,500 compared to the previous model as part of our plan to offer low wholelife costs to our customers.”

Vauxhall also launched the Astra with much lower P11D pricing and was one of the pioneers of high-spec, low P11D trims aimed specifically at company car drivers with Tech Line.

James Dower, senior editor, Black Book at Cap HPI said the gap between the P11D price and transaction price can sometimes be “sizeable”. 

“It therefore makes lots of sense to reduce the list price and, in turn, lessen the margin in the vehicle as the car will look more attractive on company car lists from a BIK perspective,” he said. 

Caroline Sandall, deputy chair of fleet representative body ACFO and director of ESE Consulting, says that the gap between the P11D price and the transaction price has been a “bone of contention” for as long as she has been in the industry. However, she said: “Increasingly, the P11D price bears little resemblance to price paid so is not an accurate reflection of the value of the benefit received. 

“Discounts are now so common that the vast majority of private users can achieve some form of reduced price, as well as lease companies and fleets who outright purchase.” 

So should more manufacturers follow Ford and Vauxhall’s lead or HMRC change its method of calculation? Sandall believes it is something that needs to be looked at, but recognises it is not a simple change to make. 

“Nevertheless, the industry should be able to come up with something that works for all purchasers to simplify the system.”

She also argues that the plug-in grant should be taken into consideration.

“It is time for the industry to tackle this issue and find a solution that is more effective for business users than the current published list price approach, especially when considering the price applied for BIK purposes,” she said. 

However, not everybody agrees that manufacturer discounts make BIK payments based on the P11D price hard to justify.

Colin Tourick, professor of automotive management at the University of Buckingham Business School, said: “I don’t think there’s an anomaly with company car drivers having to pay BIK tax based on P11D price. In fact, I think it’s the only workable solution. 

“Various discounts may be available to leasing companies when they buy cars. These discounts change frequently and in many cases the leasing company won’t know what the net price will be until they find a dealer with the vehicle in stock and strike a price. That’s too late in the transaction for the company car driver; when they are browsing through the leasing company’s online quoting system they need to know the BIK tax they’ll be paying. 

“The only fixed, certain number in the whole system is the P11D price. HMRC can check this number easily and two employees in the same company who drive the same model of company car will pay identical BIK tax.”

He also notes that the overall tax-take the Government levies from company car drivers would not be reduced if the system was based on discounted prices. 

“They’d just hike up the rates to compensate,” he said. “So no one would gain but the system would be way more complex and almost certainly unworkable.” 

Furthermore, Tourick does not think the Government should apply plug-in grants to the P11D price. “BIK tax on these cars is already low, though sadly set to rise, so the incentive to choose them is already there,” he said.

“The aggregate amount of grant is capped and once the limit is reached it will no longer be available, so you could have two drivers choosing the same car and one pays less BIK because they got their order in before the pot ran out. 

“And finally we again have the fact that if the total BIK tax the Government collected was to be reduced, they’d ramp up the rates elsewhere. So I think it’s best to leave things unchanged.”

Danger – Diesel

Article published in Fleet World

Strolling through a leafy London suburb, I happened to notice a parked car onto which someone had written the words “Diesel Danger”. As I had been planning to write about diesels this month this was too good an opportunity to miss, so I whipped out my camera and started taking photographs.

I then noticed Bill Oddie standing next to me (yes, really, and if you are under 30 I’m sorry if you don’t know who I’m talking about). He was wearing a facial expression that said “Who the heck are you and why are you taking photographs of my car?” I introduced myself and explained that I was taking the photos to accompany this article. He said “Will you be able to do anything about the scourge of diesels?” and I said probably not, but I would try. He then smiled and invited me to look at the other side of the car, on which he had written “They said it was safe….”.

He’s right of course, they did tell us diesels were safe. When the tax system was altered to take account of engine emissions, companies changed their car schemes to favour diesels because this was the environmentally-friendly option that saved NI for the employer and income tax and NI for the employee.

The problem was, whilst reducing CO2 would save the planet, an increase in the number of diesel cars would boost the quantity of oxides of nitrogen (NOx) being pumped into the atmosphere, and NOx is a pollutant that kills.

We now have a perfect storm brewing. Diesel is a dirty word, the fuel has no friends in the corridors of power, the Transport Minister has already warned people off buying diesel cars and from 23 October Sadiq Kahn, the Mayor of London, will introduce a £10 toxicity charge for cars, vans, minibuses, buses, coaches and HGVs not meeting Euro 4 standards.

DEFRA lost a High Court case in May as a result of which it was required to publish its draft plans for addressing the problem of nitrogen dioxide.  We learned from this that the government likes the idea of local authorities introducing clean air zones (but isn’t too keen on motorists being charged to drive into them), expects Birmingham, Derby, Leeds, Nottingham and Southampton to introduce clean air zones by 2019 and wants dozens more towns and cities to follow suit soon after. The much-discussed diesel scrappage scheme is still being considered, though if introduced it would clearly have to be focussed on removing the most polluting vehicles only otherwise the cost would be astronomical (£60bn were every diesel car and van to be scrapped).

For fleet managers, the key line in the report was buried in clause 54 “The Government will continue to explore the appropriate tax treatment for diesel vehicles and will engage with stakeholders ahead of making any tax changes at Autumn Budget 2017”.

Whilst civil servants are not allowed to speak publicly on matters affecting policy in the run up to the election, the mood music coming out of the corridors of power is not that encouraging for fleet managers. The government urgently wants to reduce the number of diesel cars on the road. As someone told me “They are looking at everything: benefit in kind tax, vehicle excise duty, writing down allowances, AMAP rates, national insurance, everything”.

Whilst sales of diesel vehicles are down 6.4% year on year, there were still more than 400,000 diesel cars sold in the year to end April 2017 and the government thinks this number is too high.

As it happens the blanket “diesel is bad” analysis is a bit unfair on car manufacturers, who have reduced NOx and other emissions in line with the latest Euro 6 standard, which makes new vehicles cleaner than ever before.

Source SMMT

Emissions standard Applied to new passenger car approvals from Applied to all new registrations from
Euro 1 1 July 1992 31 December 1992
Euro 2 1 January 1996 1 January 1997
Euro 3 1 January 2000 1 January 2001
Euro 4 1 January 2005 1 January 2006
Euro 5 1 September 2009 1 January 2011
Euro 6 1 September 2014 1 September 2015

Euro 6 was implemented for new vehicle approvals on 1 September 2014, and all new registrations had to comply with Euro 6 standards from 1 September 2015. So a significant proportion of existing fleet cars now emit very low levels of NOx indeed, as these charts show.

Petrol

Emissions standards CO: HC: NOx: PM: PM:
Euro 3 2.3g/km 0.20g/km 0.15g/km
Euro 4 1.0g/km 0.10g/km 0.08g/km
Euro 5 1.0g/km 0.10g/km 0.06g/km 0.005g/km (direct injection only)
Euro 6 1.0g/km 0.10g/km

 

0.06g/km 0.005g/km (direct injection only)

 

6.0×10 ^11/km (direct injection only)

 

 

Diesel

Emissions standards CO: HC + NOx: NOx: PM: PM:
Euro 3 0.64g/km 0.56g/km 0.50g/km 0.05g/km
Euro 4 0.50g/km 0.30g/km 0.25g/km

 

0.025g/km
Euro 5 0.50g/km 0.23g/km 0.18g/km 0.005g/km 6.0×10 ^11/km
Euro 6 0.50g/km

 

0.17g/km

 

0.08g/km

 

0.005g/km

 

6.0×10 ^11/km

 

 

However, you can be sure that as more members of public hear the message “diesel is bad” they will be less inclined to buy used diesel cars. This can only reduce residual values and lead to an increase in lease rentals (or depreciation for fleets that buy their cars or fund them via hire purchase).

Which takes us to the key question for fleet managers: given that the government is so keen to discourage the use of diesel cars, how can fleet managers protect their companies (and employees) against rising costs? The obvious answer is to start looking seriously at the alternatives.

Whatever changes the government introduces we can be sure they will still be committed to reducing CO2. The need to reduce global warming isn’t going to go away, so the safe bet is to look for low-CO2 alternatives to diesel-engined vehicles.

And there are a lot to choose from these days.

For example, smaller, petrol-engined cars. Many manufacturers have done a great job in making smaller power units that are lighter but more powerful. Some of these cars deliver very good performance with low CO2 and NOx output.

If you haven’t yet added hybrid vehicles to your fleet, now is the time to consider these. Low emissions, high mpg, proven technology and pretty high residuals (which deliver low rentals). What’s not to like?

You don’t have any plug-in electric cars on your fleet? Range anxiety can be an issue with battery-powered vehicles, but if you analyse the journeys your employees are driving you may well find employees for whom an electric car would work most of the time, except for the occasional journey that could be handled in a rental car or pool car. Most of these cars are still expensive to buy, even with the government grant, but the cost of the fuel is tiny compared with filling up at the pump.

This sort of analysis is valuable at any time but could be particularly valuable now that we know the government has diesel in its cross-hairs. Looking at your attitude to diesel now could make a lot of sense.

Professor Colin Tourick

ExpertEye Fleet Industry Review

PRESS RELEASE

21st April 2017

UK Fleet Operators anticipate greater demand for petrol vehicles

 The latest ExpertEye Fleet Industry Review highlights a move towards petrol vehicles for UK fleet operators together with a growing demand for alternative fuels.

Produced in association with Professor Colin Tourick from University of Buckingham, ExpertEye’s latest review provides valuable insights into the latest status and views of the UK fleet marketplace.  Despite Brexit now a certainty, coupled with the recent election announcement and news of changes to company car taxation in the Spring Budget, the UK economy is not showing signs of drastic change.

Based on a survey of over 200 fleet operators the findings include:-

  • More companies are putting petrol-engined cars back onto their fleet lists, or drivers themselves have decided to opt for petrol.
  • Respondents expect to see a reduction in diesel in the next two years, with electric, electric range-extended and hybrid engines gaining in popularity. A significant number of them believe that petrol will be making a comeback.
  • Almost no respondents (the UK’s fleet operators) expected the economy to shift drastically either up or down but they are slightly less optimistic than before.
  • More than half of respondents expected no change in demand for cars and more than three quarters expected no change in demand for LCVs. Of the few who expected demand to decrease, 20% said there would be decreased demand for cars (the highest level since H2 2013) and 7% said there would be decreased demand for vans.
  • Contract hire remains the predominant form of finance used by businesses, though there has been a steady growth in respondents using finance lease and Professor Tourick suggests reasons for this in the Review.
  • Reliability, fleet running costs and fleet safety and risk management remain top of respondents’ concerns as they ponder fleet management decisions they will be making in the next 12 months.

The ExpertEye Fleet Industry Review is based on a biannual survey of fleet operators which measures their practices and references attitudes and opinions on a wide range of issues:

  • fleet profiles and policies
  • the current economic and fleet environment
  • factors influencing supplier and vehicle choice and
  • Predictions about vehicle requirements and influences.

With trends going back 7 years this report contains a unique insight into the key factors driving fleet acquisition decisions including commentary and analysis from a leading industry expert.  The Review contains a summary of the survey and analysis of the results provided by Professor Colin Tourick at the University of Buckingham, on behalf of ExpertEye ag.

About ExpertEye

ExpertEye offers extensive insight into the automotive market across Europe.  Utilising research and key data from leasing providers, vehicle manufacturers, dealers, fleet operators and the drivers themselves, we provide the complete range of business feedback about all aspects of the leasing, buying, maintenance and renewal processes.

For more information please contact [email protected]

The Finance Bill – a seismic shift for fleet managers

Article published in Fleet World

Normally, when the government publishes the draft wording of a Finance Bill, the fleet press and commentators rush to give their thoughts, but that didn’t happen on 20 March when the government published Finance (No. 2) Bill 2016-17, the legislation that enacts the chancellor’s spring budget. They had good reason to hesitate, because the government’s proposals are complex and far-reaching and it seems that everyone has needed to take a little longer to work out what it all means. The key areas fleet managers need to be aware of are that the draft puts flesh on the bones of the new approach to salary sacrifice that was announced in the Autumn Statement and introduces a very different approach to cash allowances.

At least one major accounting firm has suggested that the new rules will also affect Employee Car Ownership Schemes (ECOS) but at the time of writing this is unclear, as is the position when an employee who has the right to a cash allowance instead of a company car selects a company car below their entitlement level, i.e. they ‘trade down’. Trading up was referred to in the draft legislation but not trading down.

This article ignores these uncertainties and concentrates on the things we definitely know.

As the government had already announced, from 6 April 2017 any tax and national insurance contributions (NICs) advantages under salary sacrifice arrangements will be withdrawn.

Just to recap, under a salary sacrifice arrangement an employee gives up the right to some salary and receives a benefit instead.

When salary sacrifice is used for cars, the employee saves tax and employees’ NIC, and the employer saves employers’ NIC. The employee pays benefit in kind tax under the normal rules for company cars. Historically, if an employee chose a relatively low cost, low-CO2 car they could make savings. Salary sacrifice schemes have predominantly been used to provide cars for employees who would not otherwise be entitled to a company car, most of whom have been basic rate taxpayers.

The draft legislation describes these arrangements as ‘optional remuneration arrangements’ (OpRAs). The industry knew that salary sacrifice schemes were being reviewed in 2016, but before last November they had no idea that the government would include cash allowances in the rule changes. This has been confirmed in the wording of the draft bill.

If your company operates a salary sacrifice arrangement or offers benefits such as company cars or the option to take a cash allowance in lieu of those benefits, you need to understand the new rules. Even employers that have never offered salary sacrifice but offer employees the choice between a cash allowance and a company car are caught by the new rules. An awful lot of companies, tens of thousands and maybe more, now have to consider how these changes affect them.

The draft legislation describes two types of OpRA, both of which will now be regarded as conferring a benefit on the employee.

  • Under Type A arrangements the employee foregoes earnings in return for the benefit (e.g. a salary sacrifice car)
  • Under Type B the employee receives a benefit rather than some earnings (e.g. takes a company car rather than a cash allowance).

And here is the key piece of information: if an employee choses to take a benefit instead of an amount of salary, they will be taxed on the greater of the salary given up and the taxable value of the benefit in kind.

The legislation includes provisions designed to stop people claiming that a particular type of benefit or form of salary reduction falls outside the scope of the rules.

 

There are transitional arrangements. If someone took a car emitting more than 75g CO2/km on a salary sacrifice scheme before 6 April 2017 they will be taxed under the old rules (the normal company car BIK rules) until the earlier of 6 April 2021 or the date when they modify or renew the deal. If the car emits less than 75g CO2/km the old rules continue to apply.

If an employee changes or renews the OpRA on after 6 April 2017 the new rules will apply from the date of the renewal or change. Amendments that arise because of matters that are not within the control of the employer or employee – e.g. the car is written off and replaced, or the employee is allowed to vary the arrangement because they take are on extended sick or leave or maternity leave – are not regarded as changes for this purpose.

Is a car emits more than 75 grams CO2/km and the employee has sacrificed salary, they will be taxed either on the normal basis for a company car (which is broadly; list price multiplied by a percentage based on the CO2 emissions of the car) or on the amount of salary they sacrificed, whichever value is the higher. To determine whether the benefit in kind or the salary sacrifice delivers the higher value, any capital contribution made by the employee towards the purchase of the car or payments for private use are ignored in the initial calculation (called the “modified cash equivalent”).

Once the appropriate amount has been calculated the employee gets credit for any capital contribution (capital contribution [max £5,000] x the appropriate percentage). Credit is then given for any private use contribution.

Fortunately, HMRC has provided an example of how this will work in practice. Assume an employee has a car for the whole of 2017-18, for which they sacrificed £300 salary per month, and they also paid £1,500 to get a higher spec car than their limit allowed. The car’s list price is £20,000 and it has an appropriate percentage of 17%. The normal cash equivalent value of the vehicle would be:

  • £20,000 less capital contribution £1,500 = £18,500 x 17% = £3,145

The modified cash equivalent is:

  • £20,000 x 17% = £3,400 (the capital contribution is ignored).

The sacrificed salary exceeds the modified cash equivalent, so the sacrificed salary will be used to calculate the additional amount to be treated as earnings and taxed.

Therefore the taxable amount is £3,600 less £255 (capital contribution of £1,500x 17%) = £3,345.

This approach also extends to free fuel supplied to an employee who gives up salary for the right to receive free private fuel paid for by their employer. They will be taxed on either the cash equivalent value of the fuel (calculated on the normal basis where the fuel multiplier of £22,600 is multiplied by the appropriate percentage based on the car’s CO2) or the amount of salary sacrificed by the employee for the benefit of the fuel, whichever is the greater.

So if an employee sacrifices £400 per month and their employer pays for private fuel for a company car with an appropriate percentage of 20%, the cash equivalent of the fuel benefit will be £4,520, the sacrificed salary will be £4,800, and as the sacrificed salary exceeds the cash equivalent value of the fuel, the employee will be taxed on £4,800 not £4,520.

A similar calculation needs to be made if salary is sacrificed in return for being given a company van or free private fuel for such a van.

It’s going to take some while for fleet managers and the fleet industry to get their minds around this sort of logic and there are a lot of consequences of these new regulations.

  • When choosing their company cars, employees need to know how much tax they are going to pay. Currently this is normally shown on the leasing company’s quotation screen. In future, these screens will have to be modified to provide the correct figures, and the systems will have to hold information about cash allowances, capital contributions, personal contributions, etc.
  • Employers are going to have to decide whether to keep cash allowances at current levels or reduce them. If the company offers a generous cash allowance scheme many employees will find that they are being taxed on a cash allowance they haven’t received.
  • The new rules may reduce the incentive for employees to choose low CO2 cars. Employers have to decide how they wish to manage this, or indeed whether this is important to them.
  • Salary sacrifice schemes still work, but the interplay between salary sacrifice, cash allowances and ‘normal’ company-car based benefits in kind tax mean that leasing companies are going to ensure that their quoting system provide the employee with all necessary information on which to base a decision about whether to enter into the salary sacrifice arrangement.

Professor Colin Tourick

Salary Sacrifice for Cars: banishing the myths

Article published in Fleet World

This is the third time in the last twelve months that we have looked at salary sacrifice in this column, and I make no apologies for returning to it now. There are so many myths about the impact of the Chancellor’s announcement in November that it’s definitely worthwhile taking a deeper look.

Just to recap, in a nutshell, the changes the Chancellor announced were as follows:

If an employee takes a car emitting more than 75g/km of CO2 they will pay the higher of (1) the relevant level of Benefit In Kind (BIK) tax for that car or (2) tax on the amount of salary sacrificed.  The changes commence on 6 April 2017 for new agreements and 6 April 2021 for agreements that were live on 6 April 2017.  Cars with 75g/km or less (ULEVS – Ultra Low Emission Vehicles) are not affected by the changes.

So, let’s knock on the head some of the myths that have been flying about.

  1. “Car salary sacrifice schemes have been banned.”

That’s not correct. The tax treatment has changed for some cars but employers can still offer salary sacrifice for cars.

Imagine a situation where you are about to start a new job and the HR person goes through a nice long list of all of the benefits of employment. “We also offer a simple scheme whereby you or a member of your family can drive a brand new fully-insured car using the discounts we have negotiated with our suppliers and the interest rate we pay when borrowing money. In other words, you get the benefit of our buying power.”

Wouldn’t that sound attractive to you? Well that’s still the position. Yes, some tax benefits will only be available for cars emitting more than 75g/km of CO2 from 6 April, but this doesn’t stop the employee getting the benefit of their employer’s buying power, whilst still enjoying other savings like employee National Insurance.

  1. “Salary sacrifice schemes will end in 2021.”

That’s not correct either. Cars that are ordered under salary sacrifice arrangements before 6 April this year will benefit from the old tax rules even if they are delivered afterwards. The 2021 date refers to how long the existing tax treatment of current contracts, and new contracts signed before 6 April, will be protected for.

  1. “Salary sacrifice is going to become more expensive for everyone.”

Also, incorrect, and not just because the rules remain unchanged for ULEVs.

Salary sacrifice cars were always regarded as regular company cars for tax purposes. BIK tax rises annually and will continue to do so for all company car drivers. If the BIK tax an employee is paying on their car already exceeds the income tax on the salary being sacrificed, they will be unaffected by the new rules.

This point, which is explained in more detail in the Range Rover Evoque example below, has not received enough publicity. One leasing company carried out an evaluation of the effect of the new rules on their salary sacrifice clients. They started by assuming that every salary sacrifice employee currently driving one of their cars would have stared their contracts after 5 April. According to their evaluation, 46% of those drivers would be paying no more tax under the new rules than they are paying now in BIK tax. If they did have to pay extra tax, in most cases this would be less than £5 per month. Of course, the employees could avoid this extra cost by simply choosing lower-CO2 or cheaper cars.

  1. “The changes do away with tax and national insurance benefits.”

We’ve already dealt with the tax benefits. Employers will no longer make Class 1A NI contribution savings on vehicles with emissions above 75g/km of CO2. But there has been little publicity about the fact that the Chancellor’s announcement does not affect employee national insurance at all, so there are still NI savings to be made. 75% of current salary sacrifice drivers in the UK are basic rate tax payers so this represents a 12% saving on top of the other discounts.

  1. “Many companies are withdrawing from salary sacrifice schemes.”

In fact the opposite appears to be the case. The day after the Chancellor’s autumn statement a couple of large companies announced that they were withdrawing their salary sacrifice schemes. However, leasing companies have said publicly that they have launched many new schemes since November. It seems that a backlog had built up whilst employers waited to hear what was said in the Autumn Statement. And many employers have realised that their employees value these schemes even without the tax benefits.

  1. “Salary sacrifice is now only worthwhile for ULEVs.”

As already shown above, this is not correct. However, the savings will be good for ULEVs under the new rules.

Let’s now look at a couple of interesting examples. In the first example, we can see that there is still a saving to be made by the employer even though the CO2 of this vehicle significantly exceeds 75g/km.

 

 

Mini Cooper

The employer’s position
Current Post April 2017
Vehicle & CO2 92 g/km 92 g/km
P11D value £18,060 £18,060
Vehicle scale charge 20% (ave) 20% (ave)
Gross salary reduction £366.53 £366.53
Benefit in Kind £301.00 £301.00
Class 1 NI that would be paid on salary £50.58 £50.58
Class 1A NI payable on gross reduction or taxable benefit,  whichever is higher £41.54 £50.58
Net saving per employee £9.04 £0.00
Average annual net saving £108.48 £0.00
Average pension saving per employee (if employer reduces gross pay for pension purposes) £51.31 £51.31
Monthly net saving £60.35 £51.31
Annual net saving £724.20 £615.72

ULEV vehicle example Current

And in this high-CO2 and high P11D value example the driver will see no increase, as they are already paying more in gross BIK than the gross salary being sacrificed.

 

 Range Rover Evoque – 40% tax payer

 

The employee’s position
Current After 6th April 2017
Value of the car (P11d) £36,562.00 £36,562.00
CO2 emissions & Average HMRC BIK Rate 113g | 22% 113g | 22%
Gross BIK £670.30 £670.30
Gross salary sacrifice per month £ 567.14 £567.14
Monthly BIK (P11d value x CO2% x marginal tax rate, divided by 12) £ 268.12 £268.12
Income Tax saving (gross sacrifice x tax rate) £ 226.86 £226.86
NI saving per month (this saving will remain) £    11.34 £11.34
Tax due (BIK or income tax whichever is higher) £ 268.12 £268.12
Net cost to employee £ 597.06 £597.06
(Gross cost – NI saving – Income Tax saving + Tax due)

I suspect that once they do the sums, most employers will decide to stick with their salary sacrifice schemes. The calculations now have to be done slightly differently but the financial logic in favour of salary sacrifice for cars remains intact.

Professor Colin Tourick

Where next for the fleet leasing industry?

Article published in Fleet Leasing

When I downloaded an app that allowed me to check nitrogen oxide levels close to my home, I was disappointed that the readings were two weeks old. Then I became interested in my disappointment. Much of the research data I look at is months old, yet here I was expressing disappointment with readings that were just two weeks old.

How our expectations have changed. We expect everything instantaneously and are disappointed if we can’t get it. Let’s bear this in mind as we start discussing the future of the fleet leasing industry.

In the long term, say 10-15 years, fully autonomous vehicles will be ubiquitous. People who prefer to drive may be viewed as “hobbyists”, much as we now regard those who take photographs on film then develop and print the results. Most of us live in cities and won’t want to own cars because we will be able to summon up an autonomous vehicle at will, just like we book an Uber today.

Whether they will actually be operated by Uber or a similar company is open to debate. The speed of Uber’s rollout (and their losses) have been spectacular, and they are working on autonomous cars, but once a new autonomous car rolls off the production line it will be able to find passengers for itself. In this scenario, what value does an Uber-like company add?

Someone will need to buy the cars, charge for journeys, manage maintenance and so on, and fleet leasing companies would be well-placed to do so, though this role could also be performed by wholesale funders or indeed the manufacturers – they have most of the infrastructure already and just need cash on day 1 to replenish their working capital. However, once vehicles are able to report their own faults, book themselves in for repair and drive themselves to auction for sale, there may not be much ‘management’ left to do.

Totally autonomous vehicles may not need to go to auction. They could drive themselves to potential buyers, who will probably be in rural areas where operators cannot viably offer ride-on-demand services.

The fleet leasing industry is in good health at present. Huge demand from its traditional customers – medium and large fleets – and its newer customers – consumers and smaller businesses – have driven recent growth. In the short-to-medium terms the growth opportunities will be immense, as more consumers and small businesses opt for the elegant simplicity of pay-by-the-month-and-hand-it-back leasing, rather than having to stump up cash to buy a car then deal with the used car market to sell it.

The industry has benefitted from the move from ownership to usership, and as the sharing economy grows and autonomous vehicles arrive, many businesses will decide they don’t always need exclusive use of every vehicle, just guaranteed rapid access to transport that will get their employees from A to B.

This takes us into the world of ‘mobility solutions’. Whilst some fleet leasing companies are “monitoring developments in this area” (which might well be a euphemism for “we aren’t sure anything is going to happen here so will just carry on doing what we do”) others are building and introducing solutions.

Many business vehicles cover 20,000+ miles pa on mission-critical journeys. Here a dedicated company vehicle is essential and the cost per business mile is low. Some company cars travel relatively few miles each year and here the real cost per business mile is rather high. There is scope here for leasing companies to sell personal lease schemes via employers, something that was trialled without much success 20 years ago but which may have more success now. Because once vendors start knocking on the doors of fleet managers offering mobility services that slash the cost per business mile, those fleet managers will sit up and take note.

Every element of mobility services already exists – company cars, rental cars, car clubs, buses, trains, aircraft, corporate car sharing, corporate taxi services, even bike hire – but they are not yet joined up. Employees need to be offered the optimal mix of transport modes for each journey, with expenses being managed automatically and with the flexibility to make changes mid-journey, in real time, if, for example, a train is cancelled.

Whilst they are perfectly placed to build these services, most fleet leasing companies have yet to do, or even to meet academics or government agencies that work in this area or the young fintech companies that are trying to develop and roll out solutions. One definition of mobility management might be the intelligent merging of the functions currently performed by fleet industry companies, transport operators and travel management companies, to produce solutions where each journey choice is optimised for cost, timeliness and environmental impact. So a good starting point might be to explore collaboration with travel management companies.

Now would be an ideal time to introduce cost-optimised solutions based on traditional products. An employee goes onto a leasing company’s portal, enters their tax rate and annual business mileage, and the system automatically offers the optimum solution. This could be a company car (contract hire), personal car (ECO or PCH), salary increase (for agreeing not to take a company-funded vehicle), mileage allowance or mobility card – all optimised to minimise emissions and after-tax cost both the employer and the employee.

Next let’s consider data emerging from connected vehicles. In the past, data was extracted from the on-board diagnostics port and transmitted using telematics units but soon all new vehicles will transmit vehicle data via factory-fitted modems.

A punch-up is brewing between manufacturers and their customers – most notably the leasing companies – about who owns this data. The BVRLA is very active in this area on behalf of its members.  In due course no doubt the industry will have access to the vast majority of data that emanates from vehicles, allowing it to develop much better services. These will include proactive maintenance management assisted by predictive insights gleaned by trawling through real time car data and the leasing companies’ own databases.

Very few data scientist are employed in fleet leasing companies at present. No doubt this will change quite soon as the Big Data revolution unfolds. Clients and drivers will expect to see real time actionable information: last month’s raw data just won’t cut it.

Clients will also demand risk mitigation. A company car veers off the road and kills a pedestrian. Some months later, as part of a police investigation or the ‘discovery’ process in a civil action, the employer is required to deliver the data the car reported before the accident. A data specialist trawls through this and identifies a fault code that was transmitted but not acted upon, which in turn led to the accident. Employers will want protection from this sort of nightmare and will expect their leasing company to deliver that protection.

Another area where leasing companies will need to invest is operational efficiency for themselves and their clients. Technology will be at the forefront of this initiative. Leasing companies will need to embed themselves into their clients’ systems, adding value and making themselves indispensable partners. For example, sharing workflow solutions with clients, so that both companies act as one entity to ensure the client’s needs are met. This will deliver headcount reduction and the deskilling of some tasks. Leasing company employees currently need to be highly skilled yet many of those skills could be embedded in technology so that the right thing happens automatically rather than relying on a knowledgeable person to make them happen. Most likely these changes will need to reflect the fact that fleet and travel management departments will merge once mobility services arrive. And these systems will need to include smartphone-based tools to help fleet managers do their jobs and release them from their desks.

Doing the right thing at the right time, helping the client optimise their business travel, using connected car data in new ways to deliver new services, making sure that things are done just-in-time rather than just too late, striving for ever greater efficiency (ever lower levels of headcount per thousand vehicles managed) – these will mark the difference between the winners on the losers over the next few years.

And as we get go into the era of fully-autonomous vehicles, the industry will carry on doing what it is always done; adapting to client needs. Many businesses will still need properly funded and managed cars and vans, fully dedicated to the company, whilst autonomy creates a lot of opportunity for the industry. But to remain relevant it will also have to deliver mobility services to meet the needs of those employees who don’t need a dedicated vehicle.

And all of this will need to happen in real time, to avoid the disappointment that comes from looking at two-week-old data.

Professor Colin Tourick

 

It’s time to look at tax

Article published in Fleet World

Tax isn’t the most fascinating of subjects for most people. However, as a fleet manager a knowledge of tax is unavoidable because every decision you make – including whether you offer company cars or a cash allowance, which cars to put on your fleet, how to finance them, how to pay for maintenance costs, etc – has a tax consequence.

In this article we will look at two taxes that are about to increase sharply and discuss ways you might reduce these.

The first tax is vehicle excise duty. The system is due change from 1 April and there is still time (just) for you to take steps to make some savings.

This chart shows the old and the new VED rates:

 

Cars registered before 1 April 2017 Cars registered on or after 1 April 2017
CO2 emissions

g/km

First year rate Standard rate CO2 emissions (g/km) First year rate Standard rate for petrol or diesel*

 

Petrol and diesel Alternative fuel cars#
Up to 100 £0.00 £0.00 0 £0 £0 £0
1-50 £10 £0 £140
51-75 £25 £15 £140
76-90 £100 £90 £140
91-100 £120 £110 £140
101-110 £0.00 £20.00 101-110 £140 £130 £140
111-120 £0.00 £30.00 110 -130 £160 £150 £140
121-130 £0.00 £110.00
131-140 £130.00 £130.00 131-150 £200 £190 £140
141-150 £145.00 £145.00
151-165 £185.00 £185.00 151-170 £500 £490 £140
166-175 £300.00 £210.00
176-185 £355.00 £230.00 171-190 £800 £790 £140
186-200 £500.00 £270.00
201-225 £650.00 £295.00 191-225 £1200 £1190 £140
226-255 £885.00 £500.00 226-255 £1700 £1690 £140
Over 255 £1,120.00 £515.00 Over 255 £2000 £1990 £140

*£10 discount for non-electric cars emitting any CO2

#Alternative fuel includes hybrids, bio-ethanol and LPG

There is an additional £310 payable for five years after the first 12 months for cars costing over £40,000 that were first registered on or after 1 April 2017.

 

Fuel Standard annual rate Additional rate Total annual payment
Electric £0 £310 £310
Alternative £130 £310 £440
Petrol or diesel £140 £310 £450

After 5 years, the standard annual rate is payable, depending on which fuel the vehicle uses.

We now have a system that is more complicated than before. The first thing to notice is that VED is now going to be payable for the first time on cars emitting less than 101g/km of CO2. Quite a lot of VED, in fact: £680 over four years for a diesel car emitting 91-100g/km (first year rate plus standard rate). You can add another £930 to that if the list price exceeds £40,000. This will annoy fleet managers who made a conscious effort to move their employees into low emission cars.

According to the Department of Transport, the national average emission level for all new cars is 120.8g/km.

The latest BVRLA figures show that new cars added to their members’ fleets in Q4 2016 emitted an average of 110.9g/km. This falls by about 2g/km each year, so we can deduce that the average fleet car will probably be emitting just below 110g/km very soon. VED is currently £20 per pa for those cars or £80 over a four year life, but for cars registered from 1 April that £80 will become a whopping £700 (£1,630 if they cost over £40,000). That’s a hefty increase that won’t have been accounted for in most fleet managers’ budgets.

There is a very small window of opportunity left for you to save that extra amount – order new cars now and have them registered before 1 April. In fact, if you can get any new sub-120g/km car on the road before 1 April you’ll save hundreds of pounds in VED.

The other way you can save VED for a short while after 1 April is by buying (or leasing) a nearly new car, because it’s the vehicle registration date that determines the VED treatment rather than the date you take it onto your fleet. There are always lots of pre-registered cars in the market. Now might be the time to ask your dealer or leasing company if they can get hold of one for you. The lease rental will be quite a bit lower too.

The other tax to be aware of at the moment is benefit in kind (BIK) tax on company cars.

The general rule is that BIK tax is calculated by multiplying the list price of the car by the employee’s marginal tax rate and the ‘appropriate percentage’ shown in this chart.

 

APPROPRIATE PERCENTAGES FOR CAR BENEFIT CALCULATIONS

 

2016-17 2017-18 2018-19 2019-20
CO2

emissions

CO2

emissions

CO2

emissions

CO2

emissions

 

0-50

 

7%

 

0-50

 

9%

 

0-50

 

13%

 

0-50

 

16%

51-75 11% 51-75 13% 51-75 16% 51-75 19%
 

76-94

 

15%

 

76-94

 

17%

 

76-94

 

19%

 

76-94

 

22%

95-99 16% 95-99 18% 95-99 20% 95-99 23%
100-104 17% 100-104 19% 100-104 21% 100-104 24%
105-109 18% 105-109 20% 105-109 22% 105-109 25%
110-114 19% 110-114 21% 110-114 23% 110-114 26%
115-119 20% 115-119 22% 115-119 24% 115-119 27%
120-124 21% 120-124 23% 120-124 25% 120-124 28%
125-129 22% 125-129 24% 125-129 26% 125-129 29%
 

130-134

 

23%

 

130-134

 

25%

 

130-134

 

27%

 

130-134

 

30%

135-139 24% 135-139 26% 135-139 28% 135-139 31%
140-144 25% 140-144 27% 140-144 29% 140-144 32%
145-149 26% 145-149 28% 145-149 30% 145-149 33%
150-154 27% 150-154 29% 150-154 31% 150-154 34%
155-159 28% 155-159 30% 155-159 32% 155-159 35%
160-164 29% 160-164 31% 160-164 33% 160-164 36%
165-169 30% 165-169 32% 165-169 34% 165 and above 37%
170-174 31% 170-174 33% 170-174 35%
175-179 32% 175-179 34% 175-179 36%
180-184 33% 180-184 35% 180 and above 37%
185-189 34% 185-189 36%  

Add 3% for diesel cars, up to a maximum of 37% in total.

 

190-194 35% 190 & above 37%
195-199 36%
200 and above 37%

 

The appropriate percentages will rise substantially over the next few years, particularly for drivers of lower-emission cars. Whilst the actual tax paid by these employees will still be relatively low, the annual percentage increases will be high. So, for example, an employee currently driving a car emitting 99g/km will see their appropriate percentage rise from 16% to 23% in just over three years’ time, a whopping 43.75% more than they are paying today.

So what can you do when these employees start grumbling about this steep increase?

One option would be to see whether there are cars that emit lower levels of CO2 that might be suitable to put onto your fleet list.

Another interesting option would be to check to see whether there are savings to be made from encouraging employees to lease their own vehicles direct from your leasing company using a personal contract hire agreement. You would pay them a cash allowance and they could claim for business mileage at the HMRC approved rates. It is important – really important – that you don’t let this become a free-for-all with employees going off and doing their own thing, because very soon you’d find yourself doing more work to ensure that these cars are being taxed, insured and serviced on time.

Yet another option would be to look at setting up an Employee Car Ownership Scheme (ECOS). These have fallen out of fashion but it seems there may be a resurgence afoot, and at least one leasing company has just started offering these to relatively small fleets.

If you want the best possible solution – total control, lowest cost – you could opt for a hybrid ECOS/contract hire scheme. These represent the gold standard in cost-optimisation. They aren’t for the feint hearted but they really do tick a lot of boxes.

Every ECO scheme gets HMRC approval but there was some ambiguity around the treatment of AMAPs in the wording of the draft finance bill relating to salary sacrifice and cash allowances.  This should be resolved within the next few weeks so we won’t go into details here. However, if you decide to explore changes in your funding method, make sure you get professional tax advice.

 

Professor Colin Tourick

 

Britain Under The Bonnet report

Foreword 

Dealers have been under pressure for years. To maximise turnover they have to invest in large, expensive premises in prime locations and to hold large stocks. If they have a manufacturer’s franchise they need to invest heavily to meet the manufacturers’ standards. When they sell a new car to a consumer they come under pressure to discount the new car price or ramp up the trade-in price and when they sell to a business or a leasing company they make very little indeed. Servicing and repairs used to offer a good opportunity for revenue but this has been trimmed back with the rise of independent garages and fast-fits, whilst most manufacturers have lengthened car servicing intervals. Used car sales can offer good profit opportunities but here again the dealer is constantly under price pressure.

So dealers reading this report will be encouraged to note that consumers still value them highly and that, for nearly a half of the consumers surveyed, going to the dealer for advice was their first step in the buying process. Whilst most buyers tend to do their research online, those that went to a dealer instead spent on half as much time choosing their car. It seems that the internet is great for feeding up information but perhaps not so great as a seasoned car salesman at answering questions.

As the report says, the internet isn’t going to mark the end of car dealers any time soon, and it is encouraging to note that most dealers are positive about the next 12 months.

Another interesting insight from the report is that Millennials – those aged 19-35 – are 50% more likely to acquire a car using finance than older buyers. This is clearly driven by the fact that so many people start their working lives these days with £45,000+ of student debt and simply don’t have the cash to buy a car. This will be music to dealers’ ears because finance commission offers dealers a good revenue stream.

Pre-registrations continue to be a feature of the market, as the report makes clear. Dealers don’t like having to pre-register cars: it uses up credit lines and makes them take on additional risks. The fact is that if pre-registrations were to grow it would make it ever more difficult for manufacturers to sell new cars. Why pay list price for a new car when you can buy one 90 days old that has driven negligible mileage for 20% less?

As the report makes clear, Brexit is casting a shadow over the industry and making dealers concerned about a new recession.

Whilst the likely outcome of the Brexit negotiations is neither known nor knowable, the report offers food for thought for dealers as we move into uncertain times:

  • With so many buyers carrying out online research before entering a dealership, how can you alter your web presence to encourage those online researchers to take the next step and walk into your dealership?
  • With economic uncertainty, buyers are likely to defer replacing their cars. How might you reorganise your sales and marketing operation to make sure that you don’t end up losing volume? Better IT? Better use of data? A more proactive approach to selling?
  • The growth in new car sales in recent years is delivering large numbers of used cars into the market. Buyers will have lots of options so dealers will have to choose the right stock to hold, price it keenly and be proactive in trying to find buyers. (You sold a 3-year-old used car to Mr X 3 years ago? Now might be just to time to call him to see if he wants a replacement).
  • Women now account for a significant proportion of buyers. How could you tailor your sales approach to be more sensitive to gender differences?
  • Is now quite normal for buyers to walk into a dealership and find they know more about a car or a service than the salesperson. This reflects badly on your dealership and makes it less likely you’ll win the sale. Is your staff training up to scratch?
  • Consumers said that, when buying a car, engine size is the most popular consideration (56% of respondents), followed by the manufacturer (52%) and its efficiency (46%). Clearly, consumers don’t realise that brake horsepower and time to 60mph are better determinants of a good driving experience than engine size. Is this something your salespeople might tell prospective customers?

As you make your way through this fascinating report you will find valuable insights into steps you might take to ensure that your business thrives in the future.

Professor Colin Tourick MSc FCA FCCA MICFM

University of Buckingham

 

Mobility article: Asset Finance Pricing Review published by Asset Finance International 

img_4631img_4632

Annual Report to the Shareholders of Mega Mobility Ecosystem Holdings Plc for the year ended 31 December 2026

(as imagined by Professor Colin Tourick)

Dear Shareholders

It gives me great pleasure to report that 2026 was another great year for our company. As you will see from the financial statements our company has never been stronger.

In this my first annual report I wish to pay tribute to the far-sightedness of our Chairman who a mere 13 years ago started making the changes that turned this business from a modest player in the UK fleet leasing industry from the global giant it is today.

In was early in 2014 that he first recognised that new market opportunities were waiting to be explored and exploited, though initially even he didn’t realise where these ideas would take us.

For some years, people had noticed that young people had become less interested in driving cars than their parents’ generation had been. They were likely to have been to university and will have started off their working lives with significant levels of student debts. (How quaint it seems now to realise that there was a time, before the 2018 Education Act, when students actually had to pay their own tuition fees). They were also more likely to live in urban areas where a car was a bit of a liability.

There was talk of ‘mobility management’ but not much actually happened; mostly it was just talk, though the Chairman noticed that the ‘sharing economy’ was also growing and that people were becoming more willing to share journeys to work or to use car clubs.

It was when the Chairman began looking at developments in autonomous cars that he realised that the tectonic plates of vehicular travel were shifting and he set out to put the company at the forefront of those changes.

The Project started in early 2015. The first fruit of The Project was the development of a small online program to help clients manage their pool and company cars. A driver went online, said when they wanted to travel and the system allocated a vehicle to them. A simple client-specified algorithm optimised the cost and CO2 emissions of the journey.

In 2016 work started in earnest to expand the scope of this program dramatically, so that it could optimise not just the use of a finite group of cars but the travel choice for a whole journey. The mission was clear: if an employee wishes to travel from A to B they have multiple options available to them, including their private car, company car (theirs or a colleague’s), a car club car, train, bus, plane, private bicycle, public bicycle, taxi hire car or their own two legs. The system needed to deliver the lowest-cost, least emissions and the fastest journey, with the trade-off between these three variables being set in advance by the employer and any necessary payments (including fares, hire costs, tolls and parking charges) being taken care of automatically. The project involved connecting the company’s systems with multiple databases and proved to be incredibly difficult.

There were two problems. First, each database held data in a different way, so fields needed to be understood and mapped and there needed to be agreement between the various data providers not to change the use of a field without consultation. The second problem was reaching agreement with travel companies, airlines, hire companies and so on, each of whom could see the advantage in having a joined-up system – which came to be known as an ‘ecosystem’ – though many had to be persuaded to co-operate.

By early 2018 the company had cracked the major problems and launched Ecosystem One, the forerunner of Ecosystem Five that we have today.

The Chairman’s prescience was proved in 2018 when the government imposed strict pollution controls on cities, dramatically increasing the daily charges for all vehicles entering urban low emission zones. Suddenly companies stared looking for alternatives to the existing models of mobility.

2018 was also the year we launched Ecosystem Two. This allowed clients to tailor the system to their needs but also opened it up to anyone who wished to use it. We no longer had to go to businesses to pitch to win their business. If they wished, they could simply start using the system for free. We made our income by taking a small slice of the fares, hire charges, fees, parking charges etc levied by the suppliers of services. The Chairman had anticipated that Ecosystem Two would prove popular with private individuals as well as corporates, and of course he was right because it became the journey planning and booking tool of choice for a generation keen to get around as cheaply and effectively as possible.

Ecosystem Two also started taking data directly from connected vehicles and using it in a whole host of interesting ways, including for the first time making the decision about when a vehicle would be sent for servicing. By 2018 manufacturers had accepted that cars could monitor their own essential functions and could decide when they needed to be serviced. ‘Variable servicing’ had been in place for some years but this moved us up to a new level. Our maintenance controllers were still an essential part of our service, of course, especially as they could now interrogate each vehicle remotely to see what work needed to be done.

All of this of course was setting the path towards our integration with the autonomous taxis, which happened in 2019. Uber had been developing autonomous taxis since 2015 and, once they had managed to deal with all of the regulatory and insurance issues and were launched in earnest in 2019, we integrated with them. Deals followed with Gett, Lyft, Curb, Grab, Didi Chuxing and Ola, taking us for the first time into the USA, China, Southeast Asia and India.

When we launched Ecosystem Three in the UK in 2019 we became the first company to offer a full end-to-end journey service that included autonomous cars. Now in 2026 when most cars, many commercial vehicles and all taxis are operating autonomously, young people can barely remember the days when all vehicles had a driver. For them it is completely normal that when they book a journey using services such as Ecosystem Five, a driverless vehicle turns up, takes them to their destination then drives off to pick up the next passenger.

These developments of course shook the foundations of the motor finance and fleet leasing industries. As the need to operate fleets of vehicles declined, some motor finance and fleet leasing companies focussed exclusively on mission-critical fleets of cars and vans for the emergency services, delivery companies, service companies and so on – organisations whose mobility needs could not be met through the use of shared vehicles. Others have followed the lead we have taken and run their own fleets of autonomous cars. Whilst we are the market leader in the UK, with 270,000 vehicles, we do have smaller competitors snapping at our heels, some of whom didn’t even exist in 2016 and came along with solutions that disrupted the existing market.

In other countries we typically rank third or fourth and there are still many countries that have yet to embrace autonomous vehicles so we still have a lot of potential to grow.

Whilst Ecosystem is by far our largest division I must of course pay tribute to the great work being done by our Urban Realignment team which we set up only two years ago. They have just finished digging up their 25,000th domestic home driveway and replacing it with beautiful green landscaping. In 2016 few people would have realised that once all cars would no longer be operated by companies or owned by individuals there would be no need for domestic houses to have private driveways.

Urban Realignment have also recently won contracts to remodel the town centres in 12 urban areas, removing crash barriers, traffic lights dual carriageways etc. Now that cars always behave properly and ‘speak’ to each other there is no need to devote as much road space to cars or to segregate them so much from pedestrians: every car knows to stop if they see a pedestrian.

Urban Realignment have also just converted their 20th public car park into residential housing and are pitching for contracts to convert office car parks into either landscaped park or office space.

We are looking forward to 2027 being another record-breaking year.

Chief Executive