Comment on the Emergency Budget. By Paul Jackson, Managing Director of mileage audit and fuel management company TMC.
“The one word we didn’t hear from the Chancellor today was ‘austerity’ but, with 25 per cent to be cut from Government spending over the next four years, he hardly needed to say it. Businesses and organisations will be looking hard for sizeable cost savings that have the least impact on essential activities. Eliminating wasteful and unnecessary business mileage is one area that can deliver substantial savings quickly – TMC can help customers cut their fuel and mileage expenses by as much as 25 per cent within one year of introducing proactive auditing of mileage claims using our system.
“Fleet fuel budgets will really feel the impact of higher VAT, because it’s levied on both the fuel and the fuel duty. Fleets need to ensure they are able to reclaim fuel VAT fully and efficiently. That means knowing whether it’s best to reclaim VAT using the basic HMRC scale charge method or to capture full business fuel and mileage data from your drivers so that you can get back every last drop of VAT pro rata. The latter method often nets a higher recovery from the tax man.”