Car purchase lingo

[MrProcrastinator]

käyttöetu = company car, but you pay for the gas
vapaa autoetu = company car and the gas is paid by the company

[zam]

When these terms appear in the car price lists they mean the value that will be added to your salary monthly. And the income tax will be determined according to this higher income (but paid of course from the actual salary ).

[Nallis]

But these are terms relating to car leasing, not purchasing. So if you're buying one you don't have to pay attention to those terms/figures.

[EP]

So if you're buying one you don't have to pay attention to those terms/figures.

Yes you do if you ARE the company. The company buys the car, and you are taxed for it. If you drive only little it pays to keep a diary of your driving. You can save a lot.

[Richard]

If you drive only little it pays to keep a diary of your driving. You can save a lot.

Can you elaborate on that.

I have a company car that I only do about 15,000 Km a year in. Does that qualify as a little?

[zam]

You must calculate how much you pay for the car in terms of taxes and then figure out whether it would pay off to buy a car yourself and then bill your employer for the kilometres you drive for work (the way from your home to the workplace and back does not qualify for this since theoretically you can deduct it in your tax return). According to the tax office rules the employer can pay you 0.43€/km tax free (see 2007 compensations for travel expenses)... In my opinion with very little driving the company cars are better value for money as you do not have to worry about loosing your "assets" invested in the car - which is a rather bad investment anyhow and the settlement the company would pay for your driven kilometres would be rather low. In some cases if you have an option to have a company car, the companies will not pay for the usage of you own car, but this depends entirely on the employer, though.

[Mook]

If you drive only little it pays to keep a diary of your driving. You can save a lot.

Can you elaborate on that.

I have a company car that I only do about 15,000 Km a year in. Does that qualify as a little?

Yes.

The standard figures include driving something like 20000 km/year of personal travel. If you do less than that you should be able to get some cash back

[Richard]

If you drive only little it pays to keep a diary of your driving. You can save a lot.

Can you elaborate on that.

I have a company car that I only do about 15,000 Km a year in. Does that qualify as a little?

Yes.

The standard figures include driving something like 20000 km/year of personal travel. If you do less than that you should be able to get some cash back

Hmm have to check with our HR director.

[Richard]

The standard figures include driving something like 20000 km/year of personal travel.

Ok, checked and the actual figure is 18000 km/year.

[raamv]

Thanks everyone! It's my own purchase so the message learned here is that I don't need to worry about them.

Check out some of the tips I gave in buying a new car and how to start your bargain
Start with a budget:
compare and bargain with other cars for the car that you want
Start with main price negotiations, Use the other cars's price as a bargaining tool as well as other dealer's offers and promotions.
Get lots of quotes from each dealer.
Once you are ok with main car price negotiations, start bargaining on the accessories and for this also compare other car offers as well as prices of individual accessories.
Then once you are ok with this, Start with negotiation of the interest rate for the new car as well as getting your monthly payments to a very low/acceptable level along with the interest rate payments ( try to get a total monthly payment of XEuros with Y interest for Z months, with either 0 or "$" downpayment and with AA payments after Z months(
Also, during this phase try to bargain the Car insurance payments with bonus % with the monthly payments so you dont need to worry about the insurance search and bargaining..

For Car insurance tips

more discussion on buying a new car

[lili]

"When these terms appear in the car price lists they mean the value that will be added to your salary monthly. And the income tax will be determined according to this higher income (but paid of course from the actual salary )."

Is this optional for different companies or they can choose to do it differently?

[Mook]

"When these terms appear in the car price lists they mean the value that will be added to your salary monthly. And the income tax will be determined according to this higher income (but paid of course from the actual salary )."

Is this optional for different companies or they can choose to do it differently?

It's the tax authorities rather than the company that determine how it's done. (I'm sure that you'll find companies that bend the rules, but...)