The Government has announced temporary changes to how Benefit-in-Kind (BIK ) is charged on company cars and vans.
It comes after complaints that reforms introduced on January 1 were leading to increases in tax bills for those driving them – in some cases by hundreds of euro.
The Government said that in the Finance Bill 2023, it would temporarily introduce a relief on €10,000 on the Original Market Value of some vehicles, on which the tax is calculated.
The relief would apply to the OMV of cars in the categories of A to D, but it would not apply to the E category of most polluting vehicles.
“In effect, this means that, for the purposes of calculating BIK liability, employers may reduce the OMV by €10,000,” the Department of Finance said in a statement.
“This treatment will also apply to all vans and electric vehicles. For electric vehicles, the OMV deduction of €10,000 will be in addition to the existing relief of €35,000 that is currently available for EVs, meaning that the total relief for 2023 will be €45,000.”
The upper limit in the highest mileage band, which is also used as part of the calculation of tax due, is also to be temporarily reduced by 4,000km to 48,001km.
The changes are to be applied retrospectively from 1st January, when the reforms were first introduced and will remain in place until December 31, 2023.
The measures are set to be introduced at the committee stage of the Finance Bill 2023.
