On my Audi A6, I would have to travel 13,490 private miles in order to reach just breakeven point on so-called free fuel

Business Car Manager: Editor’s Blog

AT ONE stage, the idea of your company providing you with free fuel was a fantastic perk. No more dipping into your own pocket for refuelling. But for a long time experts have been saying that ‘free’ fuel isn’t quite the free perk that you may think.

In fact, the cost of the fuel is not equal to the amount of tax you have to pay for the benefit. In other words, in many cases it’s cheaper to pay for your private fuel out of your own pocket.

I was talking about this to Martin Brown last night, the managing director of one of our partners, Fleet Alliance. This is what Martin had to say on free fuel: “The benefit of so-called ‘free fuel’ has become even less attractive following the Chancellor’s changes to the extent that having private fuel paid for is no longer a benefit for most drivers.”

In fact, Martin reckons that if your business car has a P11D value of below