Cycle To Work Scheme Being Reduced? - UK

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Dax said:
By ‘go away’ I mean lowering the limit to ‘stop the yeti dentists spanking 5k on something shiny’. Point was bike shops are going to sell less high end bikes if they make it less tax efficient for rich people to buy bikes, which is why I’m surprised that bike shops don’t like it.

For example my lbs know that I’m going to turn up every autumn and hand them a 5k c2w voucher. I definitely wouldn’t turn up every autumn and hand them £4500cash.
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I see what you're getting at. On retailer reticence, some helpful insight below, the top & bottom of it being that retailers are saying it's overly complicated with unforeseen pitfalls for end users, the funding burden unsustainably lies with the retailer, the margins are poor & worsening and the landscape has changed post covid with far fewer people working on site. Not worth the candle in essence.

bikebiz.com

ACT tells APPGCW that ‘urgent systemic change’ is needed to C2W scheme - BikeBiz

The Association of Cycle Traders (ACT) has told a Parliamentary group of the need for “urgent system
bikebiz.com bikebiz.com
 
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I do think that with the current state of the bike industry, and the C2W scheme, it’s probably more cost effective to buy a heavily discounted (50%?) ‘last years’ e-bike and then 0% finance it if you don’t have the cash (or even if you do, let your money earn interest for as long as possible).

Shiny new ‘Gnarpoon’ (😂) in the shed for less than you’d be sacrificing in salary each month.
 
I think the intent of the scheme when it was launched was laudable, but you know what they say about roads and good intentions etc.

It’s probably not helped many people buy a bicycle who couldn’t otherwise have afforded one I’m guessing.
 
RustyMTB said:
Not moralising, mine bought under the director's scheme would be hard to justify, given I work from home.
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But you do cycle to the shops to get work supplies and deliver letters to the post office to be posted ;)
 
I have a bit of an issue with the "surry hills" comment from someone in gov, because that bike might be the persons only bike and just because it's used for leisure lt doesn't mean it's not used for work.

I used the c2w scheme and got an commuter ebike. Same year I purchased a e-gravel bike outright and sold the commuter. This year I got a 6k emtb on the C2W scheme, but I do c2w 70% of the time and used both bikes depending on the route I want to take.

There should be a cap, 4-5k is enough.
 
This article say that the net gain to the economy is £4.40 for every pound spent on C2W.

www.cyclingweekly.com

'Taxpayers shouldn't be footing the bill for luxury leisure' – Cycle to Work scheme expected to be limited in upcoming Budget

A new cap is likely to be introduced
www.cyclingweekly.com www.cyclingweekly.com

So the Gvt would be daft to cap it.

In terms of bike shops not wanting to be involved, they don't have to be...it's not mandatory and I guess the 10-15% levy charged by C2W providers feels a little unfair, but how many of those people would spend that much on a bike without the scheme. I think they are also ignoring the trickle down effect in terms of servicing, buying parts and then the sale of those bikes on the second hand market.

The Surrey Hills comment can only have been made by someone who has no real knowledge/understanding of the benefits of the scheme and is looking to score click bait stylee points...in other words a waste of good skin, and an example of everything that is wrong with the world currently. More commonly know as a bellend.
 
johnnystorm said:
It's all a sophisticated double bluff. The flood of new C2W purchases from people wanting to take advantage before it goes will supercharge growth in time for the budget making the Govt look good. 😉
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But make them look even bigger chumps than they are the following month.
 
I got my Turbo Levo on the C2W scheme... As I take a suitcase with me every time I go to work, and drive 30 miles on the motorway, it's clearly a piss-take, and I suspect 90% of C2W purchases are the same. Maybe there are more worthy causes for the Gov to spend our taxes on, rather than giving me a chunk back?
 
Guilty as charged ,always been a joke really. Work offshore and get a cycle to work bike or get one for a mate.
 
Won't make any difference here.
I wish I could take advantage, but I don't earn enough above NMW.
It would have been useful when I purchased my levo. I use it for commuting to and from work every day. But people like me who would actually really benefit from a discount can't get one and have to pay full price for bikes.
 
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When I earned loads a money I didn't worry about tax bracket , oh I forgot I claimed it all back as Seaman's earnings.
 
I'm glad they are getting their priorities right. Never mind backing down on closing the horrendous loopholes that encourage people to drive huge pick-up trucks as their company car, or class Defenders as vans. Or addressing how huge multinationals like Starbucks "selling" all their branches coffee at a price that makes individual branches barely profitable so they pay no tax. Or multi-billionaires like the Sunaks paying a tiny tiny percentage of their income as tax.
It's this C2W scheme that has really killed the economy...
 
The bike shop that I work in (small, independent) benefits quite a lot from Cylce to Work. We do all the schemes apart from the one that Halfrauds run (Cycle2Work iirc) as that charges the retailer 15% rather than the 10% that the others all cost the shop. Although it eats into profits it's worthwhile for us as it definitely does encourage folks to treat themselves to a new bike. I get that we're broke and savings need to be made but I can't help thinking that the cycling public are an easy target and there are plenty of other places that economies could be made that would target those who actually could afford to pay a bit more.
 
Jurassic said:
The bike shop that I work in (small, independent) benefits quite a lot from Cylce to Work. We do all the schemes apart from the one that Halfrauds run (Cycle2Work iirc) as that charges the retailer 15% rather than the 10% that the others all cost the shop. Although it eats into profits it's worthwhile for us as it definitely does encourage folks to treat themselves to a new bike. I get that we're broke and savings need to be made but I can't help thinking that the cycling public are an easy target and there are plenty of other places that economies could be made that would target those who actually could afford to pay a bit m
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Jurassic said:
The bike shop that I work in (small, independent) benefits quite a lot from Cylce to Work. We do all the schemes apart from the one that Halfrauds run (Cycle2Work iirc) as that charges the retailer 15% rather than the 10% that the others all cost the shop. Although it eats into profits it's worthwhile for us as it definitely does encourage folks to treat themselves to a new bike. I get that we're broke and savings need to be made but I can't help thinking that the cycling public are an easy target and there are plenty of other places that economies could be made that would target those who actually could afford to pay a bit more.
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Maybe the scheme keeps bike prices artificially high, a bit like the government funded home insulation schemes? When a six grand bike costs me 'only' £3600 that's reasonable-ish. I ride motorbikes as well as emtnb's and I see a lot more value (cost) in motorbikes. Could scrapping the scheme force the manufacturers to be more realistic in the first place, perhaps selling more, even?
 
G-Sport said:
I'm glad they are getting their priorities right. Never mind backing down on closing the horrendous loopholes that encourage people to drive huge pick-up trucks as their company car, or class Defenders as vans.
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Didn’t the rules on this change recently? So pickups don’t benefit from tax relief and defenders need to not have backseats to be commercial?
 
Acee said:
Maybe the scheme keeps bike prices artificially high, a bit like the government funded home insulation schemes? When a six grand bike costs me 'only' £3600 that's reasonable-ish. I ride motorbikes as well as emtnb's and I see a lot more value (cost) in motorbikes. Could scrapping the scheme force the manufacturers to be more realistic in the first place, perhaps selling more, even?
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Assuming rhe UK is the only country offering C2W, are out prices higher than the rest of the world? If C2W is offered in other country's, is there a correlation between higher prices those country's? You will of course need to have robust historical price data for a decent length of time before the scheme existed. My hunch is in either case there will be no correlation, but you will price increases globaly when there were significant events like Covid...
 
G-Sport said:
huge multinationals like Starbucks "selling" all their branches coffee at a price that makes individual branches barely profitable so they pay no tax
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I run a small business, there's three of us at it. The very best year I ever had, I discovered I paid more corporation tax than Costa coffee. Turns out they structured their business so that they ran a separate coffee roasting business that supplied all the UK stores with coffee beans. However, despite being in London, the roastery was registered in Luxembourg for tax purposes & charged the uk stores something like 20 times the market rate for beans so the stores made zilch on the books but the roastery obvs coined it in & paid zip tax on profits whilst the stores registered losses or break evens.

Stuck in the craw a bit but if the gov are eyeing up financial trivia like c2w, claiming they're skint , there's low hanging fruit all over the place if they had the balls to confront it.
 
Pyr0 said:
Won't make any difference here.
I wish I could take advantage, but I don't earn enough above NMW.
It would have been useful when I purchased my levo. I use it for commuting to and from work every day. But people like me who would actually really benefit from a discount can't get one and have to pay full price for bikes.
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It's based on taxable earnings so if you earn more than the personal tax allowance wouldn't you still save 25% ?
Acee said:
I got my Turbo Levo on the C2W scheme... As I take a suitcase with me every time I go to work, and drive 30 miles on the motorway, it's clearly a piss-take, and I suspect 90% of C2W purchases are the same. Maybe there are more worthy causes for the Gov to spend our taxes on, rather than giving me a chunk back?
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Nothing is being given away, its being invested, and is returning over a fourfold net gain for the economy. It is not a loss.
 
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