Fleet Alliance offers salary sacrifice car scheme
22 June 2010
Fleet solutions provider, Fleet Alliance, has launched a new salary sacrifice car scheme to provide wider car choice for employees as part of their benefits package and to help companies tackle their grey fleet issues by providing access to new, more environmentally friendly cars.
The Glasgow-based company, which manages over 8,500 vehicles on behalf of corporate clients, sees the new, fully automated and online, web-delivered scheme as a natural extension to the portfolio of services it offers to fleet and corporate customers.
“We felt that a salary sacrifice scheme was an essential part of our client offering and so have moved to launch this new online service for new and existing customers,” said managing director Martin Brown.
“We feel it will have particular appeal for companies that, as part of their employee benefits scheme, want to provide the choice of a car to a wider proportion of their employees than would normally qualify to receive a company car through their job grade.
“It will also appeal to those companies that have a large number of grey fleet cars, created through the provision of cash for car allowances, as it will help tackle duty of care issues,” he said.
The Fleet Alliance salary sacrifice car scheme naturally promotes low emitting, less polluting vehicles, typically of 140g/km or less, as these are also the most tax-efficient.
As a result, it allows companies to tackle grey fleet issues by providing access for staff, who would typically drive older, more polluting, and less well maintained cars on company business, either funded by themselves or by company cash allowances, to brand new, more environmentally friendly vehicles. To meet duty of care considerations the scheme also includes driver licence checking as part of the offering.
The scheme permits an employee to surrender part of their salary for a non-cash benefit. Because the cost of the benefit is deducted from the employee's gross salary, there are savings in income tax and National Insurance contributions.
Instead, employees have to pay Benefit in Kind taxation on the value of the benefit received but this is at the rate of 10% for a sub 120g/km vehicle and 13% for an equivalent diesel, for example, which is more than offset by the tax and NIC savings.
Employees have an increasingly wide choice of vehicles to choose from as more and more manufacturers are reducing the carbon dioxide output of their vehicles, and bringing more mainstream models into the salary sacrifice net.
Employees can decide how much salary they wish to sacrifice and can then view the choice of vehicles available in the Fleet Alliance scheme online with their full specifications, tax commitments and monthly lease rates, before deciding which one to opt for.
Cars provided in this way remain company cars as the relationship is between Fleet Alliance and the company. But the cars provided are automatically covered by business insurance, as well as GAP, paternity, maternity and redundancy insurance so that there is no risk to the company if an employee leaves the business for whatever reason.
The cars are issued to employees with full maintenance and servicing already provided within the price, along with breakdown cover and even replacement tyre cover; and possess further benefits over Personal Contract Purchase schemes, for example, as they require no deposit, have no residual value risk and provide better cash flow benefits with no unexpected one-off costs.
For the employer, the Fleet Alliance scheme brings savings in Class IA National Insurance on the salary being sacrificed, as well as controlling demands for salary increases through offering a better total rewards package and being perceived as a staff retention tool at the same time.
The scheme also helps employers meet duty of care obligations by providing employees with a fully-maintained and serviced vehicle as well as offering potential savings on daily hire and pool car use.
Fleet Alliance managing director, Martin Brown, added: “We are delighted to be able to offer this salary sacrifice scheme to our customers and prospects, as we believe it has many advantages and very few disadvantages for employer and employee alike.”
22 June 2010
Fleet solutions provider, Fleet Alliance, has launched a new salary sacrifice car scheme to provide wider car choice for employees as part of their benefits package and to help companies tackle their grey fleet issues by providing access to new, more environmentally friendly cars.
The Glasgow-based company, which manages over 8,500 vehicles on behalf of corporate clients, sees the new, fully automated and online, web-delivered scheme as a natural extension to the portfolio of services it offers to fleet and corporate customers.
“We felt that a salary sacrifice scheme was an essential part of our client offering and so have moved to launch this new online service for new and existing customers,” said managing director Martin Brown.
“We feel it will have particular appeal for companies that, as part of their employee benefits scheme, want to provide the choice of a car to a wider proportion of their employees than would normally qualify to receive a company car through their job grade.
“It will also appeal to those companies that have a large number of grey fleet cars, created through the provision of cash for car allowances, as it will help tackle duty of care issues,” he said.
The Fleet Alliance salary sacrifice car scheme naturally promotes low emitting, less polluting vehicles, typically of 140g/km or less, as these are also the most tax-efficient.
As a result, it allows companies to tackle grey fleet issues by providing access for staff, who would typically drive older, more polluting, and less well maintained cars on company business, either funded by themselves or by company cash allowances, to brand new, more environmentally friendly vehicles. To meet duty of care considerations the scheme also includes driver licence checking as part of the offering.
The scheme permits an employee to surrender part of their salary for a non-cash benefit. Because the cost of the benefit is deducted from the employee's gross salary, there are savings in income tax and National Insurance contributions.
Instead, employees have to pay Benefit in Kind taxation on the value of the benefit received but this is at the rate of 10% for a sub 120g/km vehicle and 13% for an equivalent diesel, for example, which is more than offset by the tax and NIC savings.
Employees have an increasingly wide choice of vehicles to choose from as more and more manufacturers are reducing the carbon dioxide output of their vehicles, and bringing more mainstream models into the salary sacrifice net.
Employees can decide how much salary they wish to sacrifice and can then view the choice of vehicles available in the Fleet Alliance scheme online with their full specifications, tax commitments and monthly lease rates, before deciding which one to opt for.
Cars provided in this way remain company cars as the relationship is between Fleet Alliance and the company. But the cars provided are automatically covered by business insurance, as well as GAP, paternity, maternity and redundancy insurance so that there is no risk to the company if an employee leaves the business for whatever reason.
The cars are issued to employees with full maintenance and servicing already provided within the price, along with breakdown cover and even replacement tyre cover; and possess further benefits over Personal Contract Purchase schemes, for example, as they require no deposit, have no residual value risk and provide better cash flow benefits with no unexpected one-off costs.
For the employer, the Fleet Alliance scheme brings savings in Class IA National Insurance on the salary being sacrificed, as well as controlling demands for salary increases through offering a better total rewards package and being perceived as a staff retention tool at the same time.
The scheme also helps employers meet duty of care obligations by providing employees with a fully-maintained and serviced vehicle as well as offering potential savings on daily hire and pool car use.
Fleet Alliance managing director, Martin Brown, added: “We are delighted to be able to offer this salary sacrifice scheme to our customers and prospects, as we believe it has many advantages and very few disadvantages for employer and employee alike.”
Phone: 0845 601 8407 | Email: info@fleetalliance.co.uk | Legal information |
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