SE23815 - Pooled cars and vans: employee carrying secret documents

You may meet rare instances in which it is claimed that a chauffeur-driven car should count or continue to count - as a pooled car where

• private use is wholly or mainly limited to carrying directors or employees between their permanent workplace and their homes or railway terminus, and
• the directors or employees carry secret, classified or confidential papers on which they will be working, or to which they might need to refer, during the course of the journey.

Journeys like this will usually bring the pooled status of a vehicle into doubt because they are generally private use without being "merely incidental to" any business use. Statement of Practice 2\96 explained that from 1996-97 we will operate the view that carrying confidential papers and working in a chauffeur-driven vehicle on a private journey does not ensure that pool vehicle status is not lost. So that this issue may be monitored you should make a report to Employment Income Technical. before you formally refuse to accept such a vehicle as "pooled". Send the file and all relevant correspondence etc. with your report.