SMALL BUSINESSES struggling with their benefit-in-kind (BIK) administration maybe interested in a new online management application tool.
Provided by Cybit, the company says businesses can now easily identify potential taxation liability issues and provide proof of business vs private mileage for HMRC.
For drivers, there’s a paperless method of recording business mileage, too.
The new Tax & Expense Manager module for Cybit’s Fleetstar-Online fleet tracking and vehicle telematics solution allows individual journeys to be verified by the driver or business car manager, thus ensuring that records are accurately kept and retained.
Companies can identify potential taxation liability issues and provide proof of business vs private mileage for HMRC, says Cybit. An online driver authentication website allows individual journeys to be verified by the driver or car manager ensuring that records are accurately kept and retained.
“From a small business perspective, the service helps mitigate the risk of any negotiated exceptions being withdrawn by HMRC through the provision of accurate records and proof of journey type,” commented John Wisdom, sales & marketing director, Cybit.
“There can be significant costs associated with BIK both for the company and driver if HMRC identifies that private mileage is not being recorded accurately.”
Mr Wisdon said firms could suffer a full investigation and subsequent fine proportional to the amount of tax that an employee would have paid over a period of years.
Mr Wisdom continued by saying that BIK issues were a significant driver in the deployment of telematics in smaller companies, but that the benefits extended beyond the BIK arena.
“With telematics you can track what your sales staff are doing and their productivity. For example, let’s take a small business with six sales staff. Of these six, two are not pulling their weight – this is the equivalent of a third of the sales force underperforming, a significant impact on the firm’s potential sales and profitability.”
The Tax & Expense Module is available as an value added extension to Cybit’s fleet tracking product Fleetstar-online or is available as a stand-alone service that provides automatic mileage capture.
The system utilises GPS vehicle positioning information in conjunction with an in-vehicle business and private mileage switch. This data is backed by a series of configurable business rules tailored to provide automatic vehicle journey classification. This includes authorised business mileage, private journeys or travel to and from known business locations.
“This is yet another example of how telematics is moving beyond traditional vehicle tracking and location-based services where the data and its application in business is of equal value,” added Mr Wisdom.
Further information
If you would like further information on company car tax, then read our Law & Tax article What is company car tax?.
New Cybit telematics app provides company car tax help
