3 ms·

Can you elaborate a little more on the "company car" thing? It sounds interesting. Does it mean that you basically get a car from your employer as part of the j

by pchm 10y ago

Can you elaborate a little more on the "company car" thing? It sounds interesting. Does it mean that you basically get a car from your employer as part of the job benefits, but in reality you cover the cost (which is deducted from your salary)? How does it work?

usrusr 10y ago
Pretty much like that, it gets deduced from salary and not only insurance and maintenance but also fuel expenses often (sometimes? always?) go through that black box that shields the user from full awareness of car ownership cost. The taxation aspect is complicated enough that everybody has an opinion wether it makes a difference or not, but nobody is entirely sure. Many users will claim that there is no benefit, but secretly hope there is. It might have a bigger impact on the employer side where I suspect that these costs are something entirely different than salaries in terms of bookkeeping, to the point where in some companies you might be able to negotiate a bigger total if you take a party of it as a car (big maybes, this is me trying to get a consistent mental model of why these arrangements are so crazy popular, if you ask me this is either a shameful subsidy for those who need it least our an entirely pointless overcompication of something that could be so simple). Oh, and a fun anecdote further illustrating the craziness of it all: there's an organization now that sued for eligibility of all kinds of vehicles, so if my employer had such a programme I could get my next fancy bicycle through them! (But as an inner city renter, my bike ownership is limited by storage anyways, and pretty much maxed out already)
mioelnir 10y ago
If you have a company car that is free for full personal use, driving around, on holiday etc. then the car is paid for and given to you by your company. Insurance, service and often gas is paid by the company. On the flipside, 1% of the car's list price as well as 0.03% for every km distance between your residence and place of employment is taxed per month. So for 20km distance, it would be 1.6% of the car's list price. That is added as income onto your monthly salary for tax calculation, and those taxes then deducted from your actual cash salary.
- usrusr 10y ago
  Thanks, much better explanation than mine. To readers that might think otherwise: while this certainly is a powerful setup to give Tesla a hard time in the market (if you only paid personally relative to initial cost, nothing at all for consumables, would you still want to go electric?), it clearly predates them. I have personally (and legally, I was told) burnt company fuel in "daddies car" (which he did not own) back in the 90ies.

by pchm 10y ago

usrusr 10y ago

Pretty much like that, it gets deduced from salary and not only insurance and maintenance but also fuel expenses often (sometimes? always?) go through that black box that shields the user from full awareness of car ownership cost. The taxation aspect is complicated enough that everybody has an opinion wether it makes a difference or not, but nobody is entirely sure. Many users will claim that there is no benefit, but secretly hope there is. It might have a bigger impact on the employer side where I suspect that these costs are something entirely different than salaries in terms of bookkeeping, to the point where in some companies you might be able to negotiate a bigger total if you take a party of it as a car (big maybes, this is me trying to get a consistent mental model of why these arrangements are so crazy popular, if you ask me this is either a shameful subsidy for those who need it least our an entirely pointless overcompication of something that could be so simple). Oh, and a fun anecdote further illustrating the craziness of it all: there's an organization now that sued for eligibility of all kinds of vehicles, so if my employer had such a programme I could get my next fancy bicycle through them! (But as an inner city renter, my bike ownership is limited by storage anyways, and pretty much maxed out already)

mioelnir 10y ago

If you have a company car that is free for full personal use, driving around, on holiday etc. then the car is paid for and given to you by your company. Insurance, service and often gas is paid by the company. On the flipside, 1% of the car's list price as well as 0.03% for every km distance between your residence and place of employment is taxed per month. So for 20km distance, it would be 1.6% of the car's list price. That is added as income onto your monthly salary for tax calculation, and those taxes then deducted from your actual cash salary.

usrusr 10y ago
Thanks, much better explanation than mine. To readers that might think otherwise: while this certainly is a powerful setup to give Tesla a hard time in the market (if you only paid personally relative to initial cost, nothing at all for consumables, would you still want to go electric?), it clearly predates them. I have personally (and legally, I was told) burnt company fuel in "daddies car" (which he did not own) back in the 90ies.