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This is definitely off topic.

For anyone here who uses/has used a company vehicle, what value would you place on it? I'm taking a job with this new company, and I'll get a new F250 4x4 Diesel 4 Door or Chevorlet 2500 4x4 4Door. Salary is still being negotiated because I haven't figured out what route to take with the truck.

There are several options... but basically you can choose from the following:

-work use only and no loss of salary
-work use and personal use up to 5K miles with $xxx.xx loss of salary
-work use and personal use up to 10K miles with $xxx.xx loss of salary
-Work use and personal use unlimited with $xxx.xx loss of salary

Basically, the more personal miles you choose, the less your salary will be. If I didn't have a brand new car of my own, this would be a no brainer... I dunno. I have never had a company truck, so I'm just not really sure how to value it in the grand scheme of things.

You really need to weigh this against using your personal vehicle for travel to and from work or selling your personal vehicle. Also what are the company restrictions when in the company vehicle.

There won't be any real company restrictions on the company truck, just your basics: no drinking/driving, etc. And the company has absolutely NO mention of firearms/etc while at work or in the company vehicle.

They do expect you to maintain it, and it is the drivers responsibility to ensure that maintenance is taken care of on schedule. We are given a company card for fuel and maintenance. Also, i'm able to bring the company truck home from work, and use it to get to work.

I wouldn't pay more than twenty cents per mile for the option to use a company vehicle for personal use. That might be different if I didnt already have a daily driver.

Are you are going to be taxed on the use of the company vehicle as part of your wages? If so I would just use it to drive to and from work(no expense to you). Take the difference in wages from not using company vehicle and put it in some type of savings program. Keep a little out each check of the difference that you would invest and save up for ammo or new toys.

Yeah. Definitely watch out for the "imputed income" scam.

Who pays for insurance?

Yes, if you go over X amount-- for example, you pay for 5K over, but you drive 6K, you pay taxes on the 1K miles extra.

Insurance is paid by company.

It would be better if we knew how much the deductions are. Factor in how much personal driving you do, how much you'll save on gas/maintenance, vs what the deduction is and what it would cost you in your car.

don know if this helps but my last job offer came withh a $300/month allowence for "transportation"

For your purposes I would determine value by estimating the amoun of gas your spending in your vehicle per month plus reducing your insurance to occational driving only(not to and from work) and compare that to the cost of salery reduction. Otherwise just use the IRS standard allowance.

snatchel wrote:This is definitely off topic.

For anyone here who uses/has used a company vehicle, what value would you place on it? I'm taking a job with this new company, and I'll get a new F250 4x4 Diesel 4 Door or Chevorlet 2500 4x4 4Door. Salary is still being negotiated because I haven't figured out what route to take with the truck.

There are several options... but basically you can choose from the following:

-work use only and no loss of salary
-work use and personal use up to 5K miles with $xxx.xx loss of salary
-work use and personal use up to 10K miles with $xxx.xx loss of salary
-Work use and personal use unlimited with $xxx.xx loss of salary

Basically, the more personal miles you choose, the less your salary will be. If I didn't have a brand new car of my own, this would be a no brainer... I dunno. I have never had a company truck, so I'm just not really sure how to value it in the grand scheme of things.

What you outline above as your choice menu is different from what I've seen. The only dollar figures I can offer contrast company vehicle vs. vehicle allowance for using a vehicle you purchase for work. I have seen the vehicle allowance set between $750 to $1000 per month for a vehicle I purchased. This means I buy the vehicle, I pay the maintenance and insurance, company pays for the fuel used for company travel. I guess you could say it looks like your bottom option in reverse (i.e. unlimited personal use). For that unlimited personal use vehicle to be used in business, my company was willing to pay me between $750 and $1000 per month.

Hope this helps.

It has been a few years since I had a company car, but I do recall that you will have to pay income tax on the use of the company car for personal use. It appears the salary reduction may be an attempt to offset the tax impact but you will have to keep pretty accurate records of personal use miles in order to support your tax filing. To best figure the scenario you should use your tax bracket/planning data to calculate the impacts. The fact you have a personal vehicle that you can use will support the tax claims but it is an area that always gets scrutiny by our friends in the government's revenue enhancement office.

I've never been in the situation you describe above, but I did have a company vehicle as one of the perks of a past position with my company; no costs or allowance to me as it was assigned to the position, not the person. In my situation, I figured it was a savings of $400-500/month as far as fuel and wear and tear go. Just as a general response, I would take the no personal use option for a number of reasons.

First, you mention you have a new vehicle, so its not like you're in need of a vehicle during your time off. Not only that, but I don't know if I'd want to be doing a lot of my personal visits in a company rig. In your situation (with a oil/gas company if I remember right?) you're probably going to see a lot of remote driving on dusty/rocky roads. It'll be damn near impossible to keep the thing presentable or even remotely clean.

Second, the idea of personal use is kind of vague. By that I mean, you're on your way home from work and need to stop by the grocery store. Do you interpret the policy to mean that you have to go home, get into your personal car, and drive back to the store, or will stopping by on the way home be part of your commute? I always treated the company vehicle such that, as long as I wasn't going out of my way (i.e. it was on my route home) it was part of my commute.

Sounds like you'll have a fuel/maintenance card along with the company vehicle. This makes it a lot easier to track the actual value of the company vehicle. Of course this will be after you've negotiated and agreed to the salary arrangement, but it might help justify your thoughts once you make your decision.

An additional note, even with no personal use, be careful. I found that I was only driving my personal vehicle 1-2 times a week at most, often times taking my wife's car when we'd go out. I had to force myself to intentionally drive it more after the battery died prematurely from just sitting there.