In Vinyl Design Limited and others v HMRC (TC 03345), the First Tier Tax Tribunal (FTT) has again confirmed that security and the avoidance of vandalism are irrelevant when it comes to satisfying the conditions for a car to be a ‘pool car’.
- Five pool car conditions must all be fulfilled for there to be no taxable benefit for an employee who drives a company car (see Car pool , for a discussion of these).
- In this case the most important condition was that a car should not normally be left at an employee’s home.
- The directors of Vinyl Design Ltd kept the same company cars at their respective homes each night, claiming that their place of business was a prime site for theft and vandalism.
The FTT held that the five conditions are “essentially a question of fact” and all five must be satisfied. It was an agreed that the cars were normally left outside the directors’ homes (and, suspiciously, it was always the same car for each director) and so the test was failed. Vandalism and theft were held to be irrelevant, particularly since the tribunal noted that there was the possibility of CCTV and secure parking onsite.
Links:
Vinyl Design Limited and others v HMRC 2014 (TC 03345)
