THE Government has been warned by fleet experts not to adopt a system of taxing vans using carbon dioxide emissions after its review of benefit-in-kind taxation for light commercial vehicles.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown announced in the Budget he was pushing ahead with consultation on a new environmentally-based system for taxing company vans.

Currently, a van is taxed on a standard £500 charge but the Government may move to charging private use of vans according to their CO2 emissions.

But Stewart Whyte warned: 'The whole concept of vans is job-need dictated. The quality of private use in any van is pretty low, so there should be no tax on private use. However, there may be a need to look at the provision of free fuel for private use for van drivers.'

Alastair Kendrick added: 'Linking van tax with CO2 emissions is not the answer, although the issue of private use needs to be investigated. Someone taking a van home just because they have an early start the next day isn't the same as private use, but a family going to the coast at the weekend in a van is.'

They also cast doubt on whether the growing popularity of double-cabs which are taxed as vans but can be used as cars, would be tackled.

Whyte said: 'I don't think double-cabs are a national problem. They are a very real issue for a small number of fleets in a small number of cases.'

  • Fleet News Budget Briefing was sponsored by Arval PHH and AllStar.