Cycle to work scheme users - The Telegraph is after you!

If the Telegraph wants to look at the tax gap I'd suggest they look at where the real offenders are.  

While I'm ideologically opposed to improperly taking out a C2W bike there are a very large number of much higher value and higher frequency issues that impact the tax take to a much greater level monetarily.  This is a teaspoon in the North Sea.  

Have a read of the below... Current(ISH) estimates are that 60% of the tax gap comes from small businesses with small business under declaration of Income and Corporation taxes being two of the big drivers.  

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/measuring-tax-gaps/1-tax-gaps-summary

It’ll be the bus or Shanks’ pony.

That's if there is a bus. Not necessarily the case in rural/remote areas.

That's if there is a bus. Not necessarily the case in rural/remote areas.

That rather misses the point of the post you were quoting from.  

That the people at the bottom of the economic pyramid are the ones that don't have a choice about car ownership, they just don't have a car. Yet because of the way the scheme is structured, they can't benefit from it either.

And for context the poverty rates based on relative low incomes in the UK are 17% in rural areas and 24% in urban areas. And 84% of the UK lives in an urbanized area. The straw man under discussion is the fraction for who cycling to work wouldn't be an option, for less than 3& of the population.  

And as an ex-rural bumpkin now suburban city-slicker [ha, NOT] I still think that at some point people who chose to live in nice places can deal with the consequences of their own actions or if they really do live in the house they were born in and have never moved, in-actions. I have a nice 3 mile bimble into the office, the price I pay for that is having to deal with having neighbors.  I'd really like to go back and live somewhere where the only assholes I have to deal with are the sheep, but then I'd accept that it's not then the governments job to subsidize my commute back into civilization.

It’s money off a bike. It’s great.
I cycle to work nearly every day. Just about to get my 2nd C2W in 4 years.
From my circle of friends It’s lots and lots more bikes on the roads/trails. People do it to save money and it’s a shiny new bike, never heard anyone do it because of its tax threshold avoidance, it’s got to be a tiny number.

One friend got a c2w bike which was nicked within a month. Not sure how he would have proven he was cycling to work on it. And they don’t replace it if it’s nicked. It’s treated as yours, do what you want with it. So commute on it or don’t or leave it the shed.