The big salary sacrifice debate at Fleet & Mobility Live

By Tom Seymour

20 September 2023

Salary sacrifice car schemes will be put under the microscope as part of a special panel debate at next month’s Fleet & Mobility Live.

The big salary sacrifice debate will be held on October 4 at the NEC as part of the Finance and Benefits Box Theatre, sponsored by ALD LeasePlan, which offers advice around taxation, finance, employee benefits and insurance.

Salary sacrifice has been one key way businesses have introduced electric vehicles (EV) to more employees.

More than a third of companies (36%) have introduced salary sacrifice, according to the latest Fleet200 Strategy Network (FSN) survey. Of those, 32% have used it to replace their company car scheme, driven by sustainability, cost and employee benefits.

Salary sacrifice schemes allow employees to ‘sacrifice’ part of their salary in return for a new, low-emission car. Employees have to pay benefit-in-kind tax but there are significant income tax and National Insurance (NI) savings, while their employer benefits from Class 1 NI savings.

The salary sacrifice panel at the show features Amanda Bullough, Siemens EMEA benefits lead, James Ferrol, Dunelm fleet manager and Jez Howson, employment tax director at Azets.

Bullough is at the end of the journey with implementing the Siemens’ own salary sacrifice scheme, while Ferrol is just at the start of implementing Dunelm’s following a tender process.

Each of the panellists will be able to offer their thoughts and advice on implementing a salary sacrifice scheme, the biggest benefits and some of the challenges too, including insurance and some of the remaining barriers to entry like wage thresholds.

The Finance and Benefits Box is aimed at professionals responsible for fleet that may be new to the role, or are working in fleet as part of their wider responsibilities in HR, procurement and finance.

The big salary sacrifice debate is just one of five seminar sessions available to delegates at Fleet & Mobility Live as part of the Finance and Benefits Box, with topics including how fleet insurance is evolving, a case study on being new to fleet, taxation cost analysis for ICE vs EVs and a session dedicated to demystifying EV charging reimbursement.