EIM23460 - Car and van benefit: pooled cars and vans: de minimis private use

Statement of Practice 2/1996

Statement of Practice 2/96 mainly restated and explained our views on the implications of condition (b) in EIM23450. Private use that is not merely incidental to business use should in practice be ignored in deciding whether the vehicle comes under the protection of either Section 167 ITEPA 2003 (cars) or Section 168 ITEPA 2003 (vans) where such private use is:

• small in extent and infrequent and
• consists of either or both of:

• use limited to meeting the immediate need for transport in an emergency where the use of the vehicle is provided on compassionate grounds
• use for the purposes of the provision of another benefit that does not itself give rise to a tax charge where the use of the vehicle is merely incidental to the provision of that other benefit.

Small in extent and infrequent will generally be not more than 5% of the vehicle’s annual mileage on occasions that are neither regular nor protracted.

Use meeting the immediate need for transport in an emergency where the use of the vehicle is provided on compassionate grounds covers the kind of case where an employee is taken ill at work, or learns at work that a member of his or her family has been involved in an accident. It does not apply where an employee’s normal vehicle breaks down and the pool vehicle is used as a substitute.

Use for the purposes of the provision of another benefit that does not itself give rise to a tax charge where the use of the vehicle is merely incidental to the provision of that other benefit might apply in a number of different situations. One example would be the use of a pool vehicle to take employee-provided equipment, such as a table tennis table, to an employer-provided sports facility. (Subject to various conditions, employer provided recreational facilities do not give rise to a tax charge.)