Charging electric cars at work brings benefit-in-kind tax liability

The Revenue Commissioners have confirmed that charging electric cars at work leaves owners liable to benefit-in-kind tax.

The Government is currently promoting the use of electric vehicles to reduce the State’s carbon emissions from transport and to reduce air pollution.

Grants of €5,000 are available from the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland to people buying them. Owners also benefit from vehicle registration tax reliefs of up to €5,000 and free recharging at 1,200 charging points, 300 of them in Northern Ireland.

A committee of officials from the Departments of Transport and Climate Change are currently drawing up a list of further incentives to encourage the use of electric cars as numbers have not risen above about 3,500.

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In 2010, the government announced a target of 250,000 electric vehicles – 10 per cent of the transport fleet – by 2020. In 2014, this was revised down to 50,000, and in recent months it was revised down again to 20,000.

A significant part of the strategy to promote electric vehicle take-up was to encourage employers to provide charging points for staff.

However, Joe McCarthy of MCC Energy, one of the State’s leading installers of charging equipment, said multinational companies recently approached Revenue to ascertain if there were any implications in providing chargers for staff who use environmentally-friendly vehicles.

Liability

Following the Revenue’s determination that there was a liability, Mr McCarthy said many companies would now have to upgrade their charge points “costing a couple of thousand euro” so as they can monitor the charging habits of individuals and apply the benefit-in-kind tax.

He said the value of the tax could be just a few cents in some cases as the average cost to charge an electric vehicle was about €3.

The Revenue confirmed the tax only applied where the charging station and electricity was provided free by the employer for staff.

The network of 1,200 free on-street charge points is not affected.