Cyclescheme

go get 'em oliverrrr.

hope you are feeling ok after your tumble x

Yup, not too bad. Not in much pain right now.

@ Sem http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/web/site/BC/mtb/EventReports2009/20090324_BUCS_studentchamps.asp

Just changed jobs and new place has Cyclescheme vouchers. Don't need another bike, but may as well make use of the scheme. So for £500 what single speed with mudguard mounts would peeps advise. Those Wilier Toni B look ok, but have heard bad reports?

Trying to figure out what happens with the bike I've purchased through cyclescheme a few months ago if I leave the employer I got it through before it's paid for.

Will I be expected to give the bike back? Or will I be able to pay off the remaining amount minus the tax savings and keep it? Or will I have the option to do either?

Dig out the paperwork for your hire agreement and see?

It says:

*Once signed, the Hire Agreement is non-cancellable following a cooling-off period of 14 calendar days following collection/receipt of the equipment. This means that if an employee leaves or is made redundant from their employment during the hire period they are obliged to pay the remaining salary sacrifice amount in full from net pay i.e. without any tax exemptions.

If applicable, the employee may then be offered ownership of the equipment in the normal way (please refer to 'What happens at the end of the hire period?' above).*

So is there a chance I'll be asked to pay the full amount, but not be let keep the bike??

Pretty sure (don't quote me) that you'll end up owing the remainder of the loan/allowance, and that gives you final ownership of the bike.

All past payments are taken in to account, so if you leave after 7 months you have to pay the 5 months that your now-ex-company has owing.

I have experienced this; they will just charge you remaining amount

It says:

*Once signed, the Hire Agreement is non-cancellable following a cooling-off period of 14 calendar days following collection/receipt of the equipment. This means that if an employee leaves or is made redundant from their employment during the hire period they are obliged to pay the remaining salary sacrifice amount in full from net pay i.e. without any tax exemptions.

If applicable, the employee may then be offered ownership of the equipment in the normal way (please refer to 'What happens at the end of the hire period?' above).*

So is there a chance I'll be asked to pay the full amount, but not be let keep the bike??

You will end up paying the full "hire period" cost, that's going to happen either way so if you agreed to hire it for 1 year and are 8 months in then expect to pay 4 months.

If you look in that *'What happens at the end of the hire period?' *then working out any charges for buying the bike earlier could make it more expensive(depends on what your work do), most I looked into they had to charge 20-25% of the bikes value at the end of the 1st year and then it went down each year to nothing on the 4th or so year.

Most people do the 1st year as paid hire and then 2nd and 3rd as extended use/free hire and then get the bike for nothing as it's devalued and can be written off.

Dig out the paperwork for your hire agreement and see?

Cycle to work scheme is not a 'hire agreement'

You will have to either return the bike or pay the outstanding amount - and thus loose the income tax benefit of having this taken from your salary.

However as its cyclescheme its not even optional.. the total cost of the bike will just be taken by your employer out of your final salary.

Cyclescheme will also what you to pay 'fair value' for the bike. They work this out very unfairly just based on age.

Why have you started a new thread for this?
http://www.lfgss.com/search.php?searchid=3464491

Tommy stahp.

Cycle to work scheme is not a 'hire agreement'

You will have to either return the bike or pay the outstanding amount - and thus loose the income tax benefit of having this taken from your salary.

However as its cyclescheme its not even optional.. the total cost of the bike will just be taken by your employer out of your final salary.

Cyclescheme will also what you to pay 'fair value' for the bike. They work this out very unfairly just based on age.

Why have you started a new thread for this?
http://www.lfgss.com/search.php?searchid=3464491

Should probably double check that your link works before posting it...but thanks.

Cycle to work scheme is not a 'hire agreement'

You will have to either return the bike or pay the outstanding amount - and thus loose the income tax benefit of having this taken from your salary.

However as its cyclescheme its not even optional.. the total cost of the bike will just be taken by your employer out of your final salary.

Cyclescheme will also what you to pay 'fair value' for the bike. They work this out very unfairly just based on age.

Why have you started a new thread for this?
http://www.lfgss.com/search.php?searchid=3464491

Can you show me where they aren't hire agreements?

Here is more info on the one you mentioned.
http://www.cyclescheme.co.uk/get-a-bike

Your hire payments are deducted from your gross monthly salary. At the end of the hire period employees may be given the opportunity to buy the bike for the market value, however this cannot be an automatic entitlement. Many employers opt for Cyclescheme to take ownership of the bikes at the end of the hire term, in which case any offer sale to the employee will come directly from Cyclescheme.

cyclework scheme isn't a hire agreement.
never really understood what cyclescheme is or isn't, I just ignored the threatening letters they kept sending me, eventually they seemed to go away.

I'm a bit lost
What are you hoping for here?
The worst thing that can happen is you have to pay for the bike your riding in full.
The best thing that can happen (but almost certainly won't) your employer decides not to take the cost of the bike out of your final salary.

cyclework scheme isn't a hire agreement.

Staaaahhhp!!!

never really understood what cyclescheme is

but agree am staphtping or whatever it is now.

cyclework scheme isn't a hire agreement.
never really understood what cyclescheme is or isn't, I just ignored the threatening letters they kept sending me, eventually they seemed to go away.

I'm a bit lost
What are you hoping for here?
The worst thing that can happen is you have to pay for the bike your riding in full.
The best thing that can happen (but almost certainly won't) your employer decides not to take the cost of the bike out of your final salary.

I am fully aware that I have to pay what's owed, I just wasn't sure if I was going to be let keep the bike afterwards.

But the cycle to work scheme isn't a hire agreement, it's some weird fucking mish mash of skirting around various tax rules and failing to skirt around various tax rules and thus making it even more convoluted and nonsensical. Add in employers with HR departments too lazy to do the tiny amount of work involved in administrating such schemes themselves and thus using for-profit third parties to administer it for them and you have a ridiculous clusterfuck of a scheme where no one really knows who owns, is responsible for, who's paying, what you can get, how much and why and what the taxman gets and what happens at the end of the scheme and you may as well just buy a fucking bike on hire purchase. Or just save up.

Unless of course you are really well paid and thus in a higher tax bracket and then it begins to be actually beneficial.

Although is there still the arbitrary and not-going-up-with-inflation 1000 pound ceiling?

Also, can I get a keyboard with a pound sign on it please?

Jezston explains the situation quiet succinctly
However I disagree that the scheme isn't worth while to take advantage of even if you are in the basic tax rate band (like me)

If your worry is that you might not get the bike at the end of the agreement, this is understandable as the guarantee is not usually given due to the additional tax complications it causes.

But I have never heard of any situation where someone after completing full payment has not received a bike. Given the number of people using the scheme I think you can consider yourself fairly safe on this one.

Although is there still the arbitrary and not-going-up-with-inflation 1000 pound ceiling?

That's the OFT's fault, it's the limit they put on the group consumer credit license they provided for this scheme.

My company has its own CCL, so the limit is £3000 for me even though we use Cyclescheme. However, I last used the scheme before the got badgered by HMRC to tighten it up; it was ~2008 and I paid £88 to buy my bike (£1500 worth of vouchers, another £800 paid on top) at the end of the year. Annoying since I'm still at the same company so, by the new rules, I'd not pay anything (according to the following table).

The market value that Cyclescheme use is based on the this table from HMRC: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/eimanual/EIM21667a.htm

So if you leave before completing the payments you pay back the extra payments, plus buy the bike for 25% (at least, dunno what happens if the bike is <1 year old).

In my experience of cyclescheme, I paid the final payments out of my last wage and was never asked for the transfer of ownership payment.

It specifically isn't a hire-purchase agreement (which would be subject to income tax as benefit in kind, so the opposite effect of the tax free scheme), but depending on the contract it could be set up (and was originally intended as) a hire agreement. The problem being that 99.99% of companies would never want to own the bike, and pretty much all employees go into it wanting to own the bike at the end.

so cyclescheme. yea or nay (on 30ish k, assuming 25% purchase)? My calculation is a 7% savings, but risk of it being stolen.

accurate?

7% on 1000, £70... Not really worth it (you can probably get similar or better deals paying in cash of that was a possibility), but it's basically an interest free loan that you don't need to think about because it comes out of your wages before anything else.

For that it's worth it.

Also there's the chance you will leave work and your employer with take the cost (by my calc my dayone cost about half it's value)

Do my calculations seem correct? I'm not a numbers guy.

There are calculators out there... 7% sounds about right though.