I have been salivating over the new Tesla Model S that has recently been introduced in the UK. It carries a fairly hefty price tag but given its space-age interior, high performance and ‘cheap as chips’ running costs (its 100% electric) its hard to ignore.
The good news for company owners is that there are some nice tax incentives that can sweeten a deal in getting your mits on one of these cars.
Ordinarily it rarely stacks up from a financial perspective to acquire a car through the company as the driver gets stung for high benefit in kind income tax charges and the company gets sloooooow tax relief in the company. 9 times out of 10 it makes more sense to acquire the company personally and take advantage of the Approved Mileage rates to claw back some of the running costs on business mileage. But there are a handful of exceptions – and this is one of them.
The Government wants to encourage people to invest in low Co2 emission and electric cars so they offer tax incentives. A Tesla Model S ticks all the boxes (for now…)
- As it is electric, you can get a 100% write-off against taxable profits in the company. This is huge. A £70k P85 Tesla Model S bought through the company (either outright or via HP) would save corporation tax of c£14k!
- There is 0% benefit in kind charge – watch out, this is scheduled to run out on 5 April 2015
- No road tax
- No London Congestion Charge
There have been tax incentives like this around for a while for low emission cars but, to be frank, these cars have been fairly uninspiring.
The Tesla Model S is a bit of a game-changer in this respect and hopefully opens the doors for more innovative performance cars that both help the environment whilst being functional and fun too (oh and tax friendly!).
