Land Rover tax treatment

[Jaykay]

Can anybody point me in the right direction for this.

I have been asked whether a Land Rover is a commercial vehicle or a car. I know the Discovery, Freelander and Range Rover are cars, this is for the Defender. I seem to recall that if it has no rear windows and/or no rear seats, it is commercial but I cannot find anything helpful on the HMRC site (no surprise there).

Also, is there a difference between tax treatment and VAT treatment?

If it makes a difference, he is looking at buying a new short wheelbase vehicle. Thanks.

[MyAccountantOnline]

This should help -

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/vat/sectors/motors/what-is-car.htm

Nicola

[KDMINX]

I know the Discovery, Freelander and Range Rover are cars, this is for the Defender.

Not true, there are versions of the Freelander and Disco that are vans.

[newcarcontracts]

Can anybody point me in the right direction for this.

I have been asked whether a Land Rover is a commercial vehicle or a car. I know the Discovery, Freelander and Range Rover are cars, this is for the Defender. I seem to recall that if it has no rear windows and/or no rear seats, it is commercial but I cannot find anything helpful on the HMRC site (no surprise there).

Also, is there a difference between tax treatment and VAT treatment?

If it makes a difference, he is looking at buying a new short wheelbase vehicle. Thanks.

Hello, my first post. I'm in the industry so hope I can help. It actually depends on how many seats the vehicle has. If it's front seats only then it's commercial - described as the 'hard top' or 'pickup' versions. If he's going for the station wagon (county or standard) then it's classed as a commercial vehicle.

As far as the VAT is concerned, if it's a commercial vehicle then the VAT element of the sale price is fully reclaimable (assuming you're VAT regsitered). This isn't the case with a car.

Hope this helps!
Cheers,
Richard.

[Zeno]

Hello, my first post. I'm in the industry so hope I can help. It actually depends on how many seats the vehicle has. If it's front seats only then it's commercial - described as the 'hard top' or 'pickup' versions. If he's going for the station wagon (county or standard) then it's classed as a commercial vehicle.

As far as the VAT is concerned, if it's a commercial vehicle then the VAT element of the sale price is fully reclaimable (assuming you're VAT regsitered). This isn't the case with a car.

Hope this helps!
Cheers,
Richard.

Without wanting to discourage you from posting, it is actually a fair bit more complicated than this. While you are right with most of what you say, the number of seats is only one factor.

Various vehicles now actually do have back seats but still qualify as commercial vehicles based on their payload etc.

[newcarcontracts]

You're absoutely right and I should have made myself clear. As far as the Land Rover Defender is concerned, the 2 seat hard top or pickup models are classed as commercials, and the station wagon is classed as a passenger vehicle.

This is further complicated on the long wheel base Defender (110) model where you can purchase a 'Utility Pack' for your station wagon which reclassifies the vehicle as a commercial, deletes the side windows and removes the rear step. However this isn't an option on the SWB.

[MyAccountantOnline]

This list is useful -

http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/channelsPortalWebApp.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pageLibrary_PublicNoticesAndInfoSheets&id=HMCE_PROD_010443&propertyType=document