Wednesday 3 June 2009

Fueling the Debate

Since the beginning of the year we have watched fuel prices creep back up. We endured the April Fools day joke of an additional 2.12p duty on a litre of fuel and eagerly await the next 2p rise in September. As it stands today the average price of a litre of unleaded has exceeded the £1 mark.

With this as the backdrop HMRC has announced the changes for the advisory fuel rates. These are the amounts that honest company car drivers can claim back per mile on expenses. So from the 1st July 2009 there will be.... no change!

Now for those on MP type salaries this won't be a disaster, but that is not the case for thousands of key workers such as midwives and carers etc. These people travel hundreds of miles, but mostly local trips, around town where their cars are not running at their most efficient. In addition many company car drivers have been opting, as a direct result of Government benefit in kind taxation strategy, for diesel cars as these tend to be lower Co2 and so have less of a tax burden. However diesel has seen the biggest increase in the last 12 months (don't get me on that one) and so the advisory rates often don't cover the actual cost. This then leaves ordinary people out of pocket.

With "expenses" so much in the media at the moment, you can't help feel that freezing these advisory rates is an interesting decision from a Government department.

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