Kombi a commercial vehicle?

VanMan48

Member
T6 Pro
Just wanted to see who's done this? I'm not vat registered but am a ltd co, and wanted to put the van (a T32 Kombi) through the biz. About 80% use will be business, and also have use of the wife's car for any other personal trips.

Was looking at putting down a cash deposit and the rest on HP or personal loan.

Could the business put down the cash deposit and make the HP payments? Or is it better to purchase personally and then charge the biz milage etc?

Was made aware of the horrid benefit in kind tax but is that only applicable if vat is reclaimed? I've asked my accountant all this but wanted to ask here too!

Thanks for any advice!
 
I'd defer all advice to an accountant before making a purchase but my understanding is that the Kombi is allowable so long as its payload is over 1000kg.

For my spec (ordered a 204ps DSG T32 Highline) this meant omitting the 4Motion option. I believe you could punt for 150ps and include 4Motion, or various other configurations.

You have to prove to the VAT office that it is a true multi-use vehicle by keeping its payload above 1t. The Revenue's tax department are more concerned with its vehicle class on V5c; N1 rather than M1. The Kombi passes this test where the Caravelle fails it

There are similar threads around here discussing this too

:)
 
I looked at various ways of doing this I currently charge my company for personal mileage.

I decided to buy a Kombi through my limited company, the deciding factor being that I am VAT registered. I also put a relatively small amount on VW finance in order to take advantage of their incentivised service pack.

If I would of had enough time to factory order I would of gone for a panel and had this converted. That way you're clear of the Kombi / 1 tonne grey area.
 
I am vat registered but you should be able to buy through the company this will get you 20% of the vat back and clam the total value of the van against you tax in the first year. If you buy it then change you company mileage it will take a long time to get your money back or do you do a lot of miles.
 
I've just done the same, gone through it all with the accountant.

As above keep the load capacity over 1000Kg. Basically rules out 4motion and a 204PSdsg.

I ordered a T32 150 dsg.

Benefit in kind for personal use including the company paying for the fuel (not requiring me to record millage) is around 600 in personal tax plus about 700 NI contribution by the company.
Class 13 ni or something like that.

On the finance lease I'm claiming the whole cost of the van against this years Corp tax but the input vat I'm claiming back routinely.

In my opinion the £1300 bik is worth it to save 40% on the costs of purchase and running, not to mention less personal taxes as I don't need to pay myself the same amount as I don't have the cost of a personal vehicle.

Just remember it's not yours, if you want to own it later you need to sell it to yourself and your company needs to pay the vat and cost of the sale.
Effectively you save the cost of vat and Corp against the deprecation (company losses on the asset basically).
 
Ah that makes sense thanks. I think the only difference with me is that I was going to finance it on a 5 year Hire Purchase as I want to own it after then.
 
After the 5 years your ltd company owns it.

I meant if you want to personally own it you need to personally buy it from your own company.

After the finance is paid it night no longer be worth paying the £1300 odds a year in bik, more likely it'd be cheaper after that buying it from your company and paying yourself 45p a mile again
 
Accountant has had a look at this. Seems the Kombi, even a T32 is classed as a car (as it has rear seats and windows) for Tax purposes and therefore attracts bik as a company car which is quite a fair bit a year (£3k+). It passes for reclaiming the VAT as it's over a tonne, hmrc like to make things confusing for folk it seems!
 
infact I've got tha answer, had it in writing before and did see it confirmed on the HMRC website.

You are correct the 1000kg relates to VAT.

For BIK it's on vehicle class.

"
Are there any exceptions to these LCV tax rules?
There is some confusion about dual-purpose, car-derived vans and vans with additional rows of seats, such as double cab and kombi models - and indeed pickup trucks.

To be absolutely sure a vehicle qualifies as a light commercial in the government's eyes you can check the V5C logbook for something called the European classification. If this says N1 or N2 it will be taxed as a van; if it says M1 (or M2 for minibuses) it will be taxed as a car."
 
I'm not sure why accountants don't like company vehicles and try to get people to buy them privately.

I've heard it from a few folk that their accountant told them not to do it, withoutgiving specifics.

Mine started my last conversation with "I'd advise to keep vehicles seperate from the company".

I asked him why, he kind of changed the subject until I brought it back around.
I asked if my prospective purchase qualified, we looked into it, it did. I then went over the figures with him and it looked like a considderable saving over buying personally and claiming 45p a mile.

He then said yea, just remind us to raise an NI 11D (i think) form next year.


I reckon its because its more work for them.
 
@Chrisfraser05 I think you're right, it's more work and they suspect that you will not be expecting their fees to go up. If you are using an external accountant they seem to lose sight of the fact that their expertise is increased and they can advise their other clients accordingly.
 
to be fair though, after the initial 15 mins conversation all they have to do is raise the right form once a year lol

I suppose that there are those who haven't done their homework or its hard to explain the ins and outs to who might end up going back and forth asking lots of questions.
 
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