Up until recently, the Cycle to Work Scheme in many cases has been limited to bikes up to £1000. This was all to do with the FCA authorisation needed to effectively loan employees the money for the duration of the purchase (12 months)
The Green Commute Initiative (https://greencommuteinitiative.uk/) were the first to remove the limit in order to enable the purchase of E-Bikes for the purpose of commuting to and from work.
A couple of months ago the minister for Transport announced that in fact all employees would now be able to purchase bikes over £1000, but some of the companies facilitating the scheme, eg Halfords, Cyclescheme and a number of others, were slow to move this forward. This was due to what they perceived as technical hitches in the legislation as applied to the scheme.
Great news – Cyclescheme can now implement higher or no limit schemes!
From Wednesday 25th September - employers can contact Cyclescheme and our team will manually set a new, higher limit or unlimited scheme.
Wednesday 2nd October - Cyclescheme will contact all clients by email and provide instructions to allow them to set their new, higher limit themselves.
For smaller clients, the switch should be a quick and simple decision. For larger clients, it may take more time. We’re confident that over the next 12 months - £1,000+ cycle to work schemes will become the new standard.
In case you have remained blissfully unaware, this means that you could make tax savings of up to 42%! Your dream bike may well now be within your reach.
WHAT WAS THE DELAY?
The new cycle to work guidance contained ambiguities which Cyclescheme had a responsibility to resolve before proceeding with implementation.
Having consulted with their external lawyers and evolved a scheme design, they are now ready to confidently launch higher limit schemes and get even more people cycling.
Employers may baulk at the increased cash flow implications (the scheme has to be offered equally to all employees of a company, which could be quite weighty), however, with the savings in Employer's NIC, they should be able to finance the scheme whilst still remaining cash neutral in most cases.?
