A NEW company car tax system is likely to come into effect on April 6, 1999, it emerged this week as the fleet industry analysed the impact of Chancellor Gordon Brown's pre-Budget statement. Despite national newspaper speculation that fleets were being specifically targeted by the Chancellor in the country's first pre-Budget statement, there was no mention of company cars.

However, industry experts this week warned against fleet industry complacency. Stewart Whyte, director of the Association of Car Fleet Operators, said: 'The current mileage system is an anomaly and a nonsense and the industry is behind changing it. If there are to be changes then these must be by consensus and take into account practical operation. The fleet industry must maintain its lobby of the Chancellor. We have not been let off the hook.'

Despite national newspaper reports, the Government's bid to switch company car tax to a private mileage basis comes as no surprise as three years ago Labour MP Andrew Smith, then a member of the shadow treasury team, said a future Labour Government would scrap the existing business mileage breaks and tax private mileage in a radical shake-up of company car tax.