Business Motoring – greener now? By Rebecca Benneyworth

Andrew, the proposal is to remove the restriction for all cars with emissions up to 160g/km. For cars over that emission threshold, the proposal is to have a fixed % disallowance - this would be 15% from 2009.

www.worsleytaxationservices.com

A bit more reliable than Whatcar should be the dvla site - http://www.vcacarfueldata.org.uk/search/vedSearchResults.asp
Although at first sight it confirms the vehicles mentioned by Rebecca but omits the VW Polo Bluemotion which is confirmed by the site when you search by make and model as having an emission of 99 g/km without aircon but 104 with it.

It should be borne in mind that there are lots of different versions of any given model - and that is why this site appears to omit the polo as it gives the figure instead for a model without the Bluemotion technology. The problem for the moment is that the Finance Bill is not yet law so government sites are concentrating at present on the divide above and below 120 g/km, when the bill becomes law we may see a separation of the band up to 110 and then 120. It is not very joined up government to drop the limit to 110 and leave the BIK limit at 120, but they are trying to save money - there were far too many cars qualifying at 120 g/km - eg an Audi A3 1.9Tdi. Note wih Rebecca's example of the Minis it is only the cars with manual transmission that fall under 110, with automatic transmission the CO2 figures are over 130 g/km!

At the end of the day it is vital to find out what infomation with be shown on the VED form because that is the only figure that matters in law.

Pradip, I rely on ploughing through the back pages of What Car magazine (that well known technical journal) hgihlighting cars with the right emissions quoted. This is of course not a 100% source, but is a useful indicator of likely models.

At present I reckon they are :
Citroen C1, Peugeot 107, Toyota Aygo - all petrol around £7,000
Toyota Prius and Honda Civic Hybrid (quite a lot more expensive)
Mini Cooper diesel and Mini Clubman diesel (ditto)
VW Polo Blue Motion (forgotten the exact model but I think 1.4d)

This doesn't include things like the GWhizz, which I suspect What car doesn't reckon is a car(!)
Hope this is complete - I'm camped at Glasgow airport waiting for a very delayed plane without my trusty What car, so this is from memory.

I'm unsure of the basis of the report that Mark refers to regarding production of electricity.
Obviously electric cars still rely on energy being produced somewhere, and in most cases this is not pollution free as it will still be derived from fossil fuels (although it is of course possible that it is produced from wind or other 'free' energy sources). It is therefore certainly important that we consider the big picture.
However, a power station and its associated distribution network must, by definition, be more efficient than producing your own energy from your own personal power station that you drag around with you (as is the case with conventional cars) - if it wasn't then we would all have our own domestic power stations rather than buying electricity in.
And of course we are now heading towards a second wonderfully clean and risk free nuclear age, where power stations produce no CO2 and with no downsides (if you believe everything you read!).

Another advantage of fossil fuel energy production being centralised at a power station is that the direct emissions are not pumped straight into someone else's face/air intake!

From a tax point of view, I guess that the justification for electric cars being treated as having the lowest level of CO2 emissions is that if the electricity has been derived from fossil fuels then there is a separate emissions scheme that seeks to tax/incentivise the energy producers, so tax has effectively already been paid on this aspect higher up the chain.

I wonder if the Authorised Mileage Allowance Payment rates will be adjusted as petrol costs rise further, or whether they will stick at their current levels as an incentive to be "green" ...

If a car qualifying for 100% allowance is bought on 31/03/2009 (last day of accounts year for a sole trader) is delivered to business address and then the sole trader undertakes 5 miles business use goes back to business address and leaves it overnight then there is no private use at the time the claim is made. In subsequent years private use is incurred but has no affect on capital allowances.

Is this correct as it seems too good to be true but appears on the face of it a perfectly feasible tax strategy !

Steve Jones