Having taken our summer holiday in Cornwall this year, two things struck me:

• there is no such thing as bad weather, just inappropriate clothing (as coined by Sir Ranulph Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes)
• you can’t throw a stick in Cornwall without hitting a Volkswagen camper or VW Transporter of one type or other.

Let me expand.

Having for years been put off by memories of childhood holidays in our unpredictable British summer it seems that the wet suit, or “wettie” is the answer and every day, every beach was populated by paddlers/swimmers and surfers. Granted, whilst the youngsters look okay in a wettie, I can’t say that it’s the coolest look to adopt once middle age spread starts to take hold.

Which takes me on to my second observation – VW “buses”. We saw more variations of the surf bus than I could have imagined, from pristine original VW campers, to modified VW transporter vans and without exception, everyone (middle age or otherwise) had an air of “cool” about them in their Iconic VW, whilst travelling around Cornwall’s clean and green beaches.

So it wasn’t a surprise when a property developer client asked me what the tax implications would be if he traded his company 4×4 Twin-cab pickup for a converted VW Transporter Van. He runs a fleet of Twincabs (not VW) and even though they have 5 seats, these have a fairly advantageous tax treatment when used as company vehicles.

Keeping this simple for brevity, the treatment hinges on whether the vehicle has been constructed for the purposes of carrying “burden”, or people. In this case, burden is taken to mean cargo (rather than one’s immediate, or extended family) and for his vehicles the burden requirement holds fast. However, when applied to a VW (or other) van which is then converted to add rear seats and rear windows, the burden requirement most likely fails and the vehicle would fall to be taxed as a car. Company car taxation is based on emissions and much more onerous than company vans, so a switch would have led to a much higher tax bill for him and the company.

So that concluded that and I thought nothing more of it until the news broke on the VW emissions scandal – this time my thoughts were directed towards the possible financial impact on companies and drivers in fleets containing VWs and Audis, and is the subject of today’s earlier blog.