Deloitte launches green company car scheme for all employees

Deloitte has launched a new innovative company car scheme believed to be unique in the UK.

The initiative will help reduce costs for participating employees as well as reducing carbon emissions.

Mike Moore, a director in the employment taxes group at Deloitte, said: “The new company car tax rules coming into force from April 2009 change the tax relief available for businesses and are based on CO2 emissions. As such, employers will need to think again about how their company car schemes will work.

“At Deloitte, we decided to take a more innovative approach by widening out the availability of company cars to all 12,000 employees nationwide - all cars in the new Deloitte All Employee company car scheme have C02 emission levels of 120g/km or below.”

Who benefits?

With the new scheme, there are three key areas where savings can be made:

Employees: tax savings can be made by sacrificing salary in return for a benefit in kind, for example a basic rate tax payer could give up salary taxed at 31% (income tax and National Insurance Contributions) and take a petrol car with emissions below 120g/km and pay tax on 10% of the list price;

The employer: in addition to taking advantage of volume discounts, businesses will have the ability to recover VAT, and save on National Insurance;

The environment cars with lower CO2 emissions generally use less fuel, which means less fuel cost.? All cars within the scheme have CO2 emission levels of 120g/km or below.

John Kerr, managing partner for talent at Deloitte, said: “We are delighted that we are now in a position to be able to open up the company car scheme for all permanent Deloitte employees, allowing them to enjoy affordable, environmentally friendly vehicles.

“This scheme provides a car for business and personal use which includes in the monthly cost fully comprehensive motor insurance, roadside assistance, maintenance and servicing and road fund licence.”

Moore added: “Our new scheme goes against all historical trends where company car schemes are traditionally only open to senior executives.? In fact, since its introduction just two weeks ago, it has already generated interest from over a third of the workforce.”