Royal Mail Group's Cycle2work scheme

[IloveMYredTROLLEY!]

Do Royal Mail staff get the normal full "allowance" of picking a bike that retail upto and including £1000 (which can include some essential associated gear like a helmet)?

Might be getting my wires crossed, but I think I recall a £500 limit being talked about...

[BettySwollocks]

I'm not sure if anything has changed,
but when i got my bike 18 months ago, the maximum u could spend on the bike is/was £500,
u also get £75 given free to spend on accessories, this has to be spent on accessories u can't buy a bike for £575.
and u can't spend any of your own money either,
i wanted a bike which cost £514, i offered to pay the extra in cash, or have it taken out of the £75, but was told i couldn't do that

[BettySwollocks]

Information on the original link has changed from :

Royal Mail Group's Cycle2work scheme is relaunching at 10.00am on Monday 18th October 2010

to

We are sorry, but Royal Mail Group's cycle2work scheme is not currently open.

The scheme will be temporarily closed from the 31st of December 2009 for approximately 1 month to perform some essential system maintenance. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause. Please check this site regularly for further updates for when the scheme will reopen.

[POSTMAN]

Link is back to normal.

Also i have an email query any chance you could help...


What is the RM employer code?

[Stormproof]

Royal Mail Group's Cycle2work scheme is relaunching at 10.00am on Monday 18th October 2010 .

https://www.cycle2work.net/employees/auth/index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Username: rmguser
Password: rmgbenefit

[mandelsons_toenail]

Erm what condition is your bike in?......."
"Let me think about that............. "

Just tell them the bike was stolen

Simple tbh

[POSTMAN]

Royal Mail Group's Cycle2work scheme is relaunching at 10.00am on Monday 18th October 2010 .

https://www.cycle2work.net/employees/auth/index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Username: rmguser
Password: rmgbenefit

Thanks but that's not it,i don't think,it's the employer code,i wil quote the email,and yes i'm confused as well as i have already given the above info out...

thank you for your e-mail ,i do have the user name and password, but it also
asks me to put in a halfords employer code which it says i can get from my
employer {royal mail} will i still need this when i fill in the form and if
so do you know what it is please thank you again.

[Stormproof]

Royal Mail Group's Cycle2work scheme is relaunching at 10.00am on Monday 18th October 2010 .

https://www.cycle2work.net/employees/auth/index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Username: rmguser
Password: rmgbenefit

Thanks but that's not it,i don't think,it's the employer code,i wil quote the email,and yes i'm confused as well as i have already given the above info out...

thank you for your e-mail ,i do have the user name and password, but it also
asks me to put in a halfords employer code which it says i can get from my
employer {royal mail} will i still need this when i fill in the form and if
so do you know what it is please thank you again.

That was the password/username in the past. I guess they've changed it as from what I'm hearing its not a rmgBENEFIT anymore

[POSTMAN]

Have just logged on and betty was right,it's not working.

We are sorry, but Royal Mail Group's cycle2work scheme is not currently open.

The scheme will be temporarily closed from the 31st of December 2009 for approximately 1 month to perform some essential system maintenance. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause. Please check this site regularly for further updates for when the scheme will reopen.

[A2B]

I think they are working on the site now because i clicked the link (already had username and password saved) and it welcomed me to the relaunched site, clicked a link on the page and was kicked out.

What i did see is that Halfords are now giving an extra 10% discount on the value of your bike, £500 bike = £450

I've had my bike over 4 months now and have yet to have any money deducted, i guess it will start now they have relaunched the scheme

[dazzlin72]

What you'll probably find is that Halfords have some sort of sale on at present and so the website is down at present until the sale ends. This is what happened in my case, but what i did was reserved the bike at the cheaper price offered by Halfords in the sale, and when the sale ended tell them that you are waiting on the voucher to come through from RM and would they still hold the bike at the sale price which they did. I saved £200 by doing this.

[IloveMYredTROLLEY!]

Erm what condition is your bike in?......."
"Let me think about that............. "

Just tell them the bike was stolen

Simple tbh

You do realise that up until the point of the final payment, the bike is the property of Royal Mail, don't you? Consequently, bikes bought in these sorts of schemes have to be insured by the person with the salary sacrifice, to cover theft and damage during the "hire" period.

No insurance, bike gets nicked, you owe employer the cost of the bike...

[A2B]

What you'll probably find is that Halfords have some sort of sale on at present and so the website is down at present until the sale ends. This is what happened in my case, but what i did was reserved the bike at the cheaper price offered by Halfords in the sale, and when the sale ended tell them that you are waiting on the voucher to come through from RM and would they still hold the bike at the sale price which they did. I saved £200 by doing this.

Website is now up and working

[fishtank]

EIM21667a - Particular benefits: bicycles: simplified approach to valuing cycles sold to employees after end of loan period
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/eimanual/eim21667a.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

As explained in EIM21664, employers commonly choose to provide the benefit of a loaned cycle in conjunction with salary sacrifice arrangements. It is common for cycles provided under salary sacrifice arrangements to be sold or transferred to employees after the end of a period of loan. The exemption for certain loaned cycles will be prevented from applying if any agreement builds in from the outset an automatic transfer of ownership to the employee at the end of a loan or hire period (see EIM21667). However, where this is not the case, there is no contradiction in an earlier exempt loan being followed by a decision by the employee to buy the cycle.

If a cycle is transferred to an employee after a period of use as a benefit during which the exemption described in EIM21664 applied, the transfer may be taxable either as earnings within section 62 ITEPA 2003 or as a benefit (see EIM21667).

In either case, as long as any payment that the employee makes for the cycle is equal to or more than the market value, there will be no tax charge under the employment income rules. If the employee pays less than market value, the difference will be taxable as employment income.

Establishing market value of second hand cycles can be difficult, particularly as the amount that an employee can realise for a cycle in the course of a private sale may be rather higher than a cycle retailer would be willing to pay. In order to ease the administration of valuing cycles sold to employees, employers and employees may choose to use the following simplified approach.

Terms on which simplified valuation approach can be used
Where the employer adopts the simplified valuation approach either
by ensuring that employees pay at least as much for the cycle as the amount calculated using the following table or
by using the table values to calculate the amount of any reportable earnings or benefit,
HMRC will accept that the valuations are correct for the purpose of ascertaining the employment income position.

This approach only applies to cycles which have qualified for the exemption in section 244 ITEPA 2003 throughout the period since they were first provided. As a result, because of the qualifying conditions for exemption, the main use of the cycles must have been for travel between home and a workplace or between one workplace and another.
Cycles which have previously qualified for exemption in this way will commonly - but not solely - be provided under salary sacrifice arrangements. However, the simplified valuation approach is not restricted to salary sacrifice arrangements and can be used for other cycles which have qualified for the exemption.
This approach cannot be used for cycles with special value even if, exceptionally, such cycles have qualified for the exemption in section 244. Cycles with special value are those whose value is higher than for other second hand cycles because of special and unusual features or provenance. For example, this approach cannot be used for antique or collectable cycles, for expensive specialist cycles that have been individually hand built to order, or for cycles with an enhanced value because they have previously been ridden by a famous person or by the winner of a high profile race. On the other hand, the simplified valuation approach can be used for widely available cycles even if they are of a make or model that holds its value better than some others.
If employers chose to use lower values, it would remain open to HMRC to challenge these and the employer or employee (as appropriate) would need to be able to provide evidence in support of these values i.e. to demonstrate that the employee could have realised no more than these sums from sale or disposal of the cycle. We would expect evidence of a lower value to include:
a photograph of the cycle demonstrating its condition along with a description of any important aspects of its condition that are not evident from photographic evidence,
broad details of the extent of usage of the cycle (which can vary considerably even between cycles that meet the “qualifying journeys” main use condition for exemption), and
contemporaneous evidence of the amount for which that type of cycle in that sort of condition would have realised in a private sale and in a sale to a cycle retailer.






The valuation table

Age of cycle......Acceptable disposal value percentage
.....................Original price of the cycle less than £500...........Original price £500+

1 year..........................18%....................................................25%

18 months.....................16%....................................................21%

2 years.........................13%....................................................17%

3 years.........................8%......................................................12%

4 years.........................3%.......................................................7%

5 years....................Negligible...................................................2%

6 years & over...........Negligible...............................................Negligible

[dvbuk55]

That's one helluva load of crap for a lil' ol' bike, prticularly when you see what's on a marriage certificate - and that costs you for life!