Company car drivers are to face a three percent year-on-year increase on their company car tax starting in the 2019/2020 financial year.æ However, as part of the new budget the government has also indicated that ultra-low emission vehicle rates will increase 'more slowly' than previously announced. Drivers of plug-in vehicles will face year-on-year increases for the next four tax years, with Chancellor George Osborne being accused by some of actually discouraging the take-up of ULEVs following the changes to company rates announced in budget from the previous year. Under the previously announced terms, benefit-in-kind tax rates for ULEVs would rise much more quickly than those for higher emission cars. The chancellor seems to have recognised that this was an error, and is set to slow the increase on taxes for company ULEVs and also to increase the year-on-year charge for cars that emit more than 75g/km of CO2 emissions.æ (The level below which cars are considered ULEVs). Andrew Hogsden, senior manager for Fleet Consultancy at Lex Autolease, said: 'The announcement that BIK rates will rise by 3% in 2019 makes it even more important for businesses to identify vehicles with low CO2 emissions that are both fit for purpose and attractive to drivers. 'They should also consider new and alternative technologies, which will become increasingly available by 2019, as well as best in class traditional fuels.î The chancellor also announced that the fuel duty increase that was originally planned for September 1st this year will be cancelled.æ In total, the government will have eased the burden on UK motorists by around £22.4 billion in total by the end of the 2015/2016 tax year, equating to a saving of £675 for a typical motorist, £1,400 for a small business with a van and £21,000 for a haulier. By the end of the 2015/2016 financial year, fuel duty will have been frozen for five years, the longest freeze for more than two decades.
