On the road for the boss is an expensive joke

Lease driver is better off

Suppose you are an employee and have to travel from the Achterhoek to a business appointment in Amsterdam. You don’t have a company car and the train doesn’t stop where you live, so you take your own car. Your boss, with a lease car, is traveling from a different place, so carpooling is not possible. You both have to park on the street and that is expensive in the capital. So you keep the parking ticket and submit it as a declaration, just like the kilometers driven at 21 cents, of course. Your boss will of course not receive a mileage allowance, because he drove his nice company car, but he declares his parking ticket just like you. Then something strange happens. Your boss gets his money without any problems, but your parking ticket is refused by the bookkeeper. Because you’ve already been paid 21 cents per mile, and that allowance “includes all car expenses, including parking.” But with that 21 cents you may just cover your petrol costs, so there is a good chance that you will make up for that work trip privately. And then we are not even talking about other car costs, such as maintenance and depreciation. Unfair? Yes! But unfortunately no less true.

Someone with a company car can simply declare his parking costs.

On the road with your own car

It is not uncommon in the Netherlands for people to go out with their own car for a business job. This can be for your own company, if you are self-employed or even DGA (director-major shareholder). It may also be that you are employed and have to go to a certain destination. It is logical that you receive compensation for this, but that compensation is low. At least, the tax-free allowance. It stood at 19 cents per kilometer for years and has finally gone up to 21 cents since the beginning of this year. Next year it will be 22 cents. If we only look at the petrol costs, then you have to drive at least 1:10.2 with a petrol price of €2.14. Then you have just covered your fuel costs, while driving costs more than just fossil fuel or electricity.

Real mileage allowance

The Association of Business Drivers (VZR) was recently concerned about this. In 2022, the VZR considered a tax-free kilometer allowance of 26 cents still realistic. Because the purchase price of cars and the fuel, repair and maintenance costs are now higher, the real mileage allowance calculated by the VZR is now 31 cents higher than last year. The more comprehensive mileage allowance of 31 cents applies to a mid-sized car, but that does not mean that the untaxed mileage allowance of 21 cents on average is covering for smaller cars. According to the VZR, a car from the smallest category that the average employee uses as his private car for business kilometers already costs €0.24 per kilometer. For a car with a catalog value of more than €40,000, the kilometer price is even €0.46. The ANWB also calls the 21 cents too low; the union calls an amount of 30 cents realistic.

Tips for the low mileage allowance

The government keeps the tax-free allowance so low to discourage car use in our country. Strange if you have to go on the road for your boss, because not everything can be done by bike. A few tips to ensure that you do not incur unnecessary travel expenses for the boss.

• Are you employed? Discuss this issue with your boss. It is not reasonable that you have to incur costs with your own car for a business trip. And even if you are only allowed to reimburse 21 cents tax-free, an employer is completely free to pay a higher reimbursement, only tax must be paid on that. The fact that many employers blindly follow the tax-free amount is especially good for their own wallet, but actually very unreasonable towards the employee or freelancer.

• Do you often have to travel for business? Then a company car is very reasonable. Whether you are also going to drive it privately (and therefore pay the addition) or not, you will at least avoid incurring costs yourself while you are on the road for the boss. Discuss this with your boss and explain the reasons. An A-segmenter does not have to be expensive.

A few A-segmenters as a pool car prevents you from incurring costs with your own car.

• Do you go to work with your own car? Most employers do not reimburse all your commute for the kilometers actually driven, but this is allowed with 21 cents per kilometer tax-free. Suppose you drive 40 kilometers to work and back 47 weeks a year, five days a week, then that is barely €3,948 per year or €329 per month, which can be reimbursed tax-free. If you receive less than that, for example €150 per month, then it pays to deduct the rest of this amount from your salary, because you do not pay tax on it. In this example, this saves €816 net per year. Please discuss this with your HR department.

• Take public transport if you can. These costs can be reimbursed up to one hundred percent. • If you carpool with colleagues, each employee can still ask for the same commuter allowance! Of course you have to pay for the detour yourself, but this advantage can quickly add up with four people. Please note, this only applies to commuting. If you drive to a conference or customer together, only the driver is allowed to claim. You can then declare any detour to pick someone up.

• The more economical your car, the less costs you incur. That 21 cents stands, whether you go out with a Kia Picanto, a Renault Zoe or a Hummer H2. Limiting your own costs always pays off.