Premium large
1st Mercedes-benz E200
The battle for premium large honours proved an old-fashioned fight between Germany’s big three, with Mercedes-benz ultimately presenting a sharper ownership proposition than BMW or Audi could. The entry-level Benz E200 started on the right foot with a lower purchase price and slightly stronger resale than the BMW 520d, to shed about $1000 less of its value in each of the first three years. The total lost per year? About $ 15,500... Ouch. But that’s big luxo cars for you. The E200’s 135kw 2.0-litre turbo-petrol sees it strike a happy middle ground of driver appeal and economy, with an official usage claim of 6.5L/100km. Condition-based servicing could let the Merc ( like the BMW) go two years between check-ups, but whether it will actually go much beyond the Audi’s scheduled 12 months will depend on the sort of driving you do.
2nd BMW 520d
ryAudi and Benz don’t offer entry520d level oilers so pitting the BMWW against petrols is fair game, we reckon. The 2.0-litre turbo-diesel iesel th gives you a 400Nm whack with it 4.8L/100km economy to bring g within a bee’s appendage of gold.
3rd Audi A6 1.8 TFSI
Th The front-drive base A6 is more than $10K cheaper than its r rear-drive rivals, and its lively little 1.8-litre turbo-petrol four splits them in terms of economy while out-powering the Mercedes E200.
Where businesses want to offer an extra incentive to employees, salary packaging is a popular solution. Mark Chapman, director of tax communications at H& R Block, explains the typical way to salary package a car is by way of a novated lease. This is a way for an employee to buy a new or used car and have their employer take care of the cost of the lease repayments.
The employer makes repayments to the leasing company out of the employee’s pretax salary in a salary-sacrifice arrangement which reduces the employee’s taxable income figure.
The end result is that the employee takes delivery of the car, and their employer agrees to make the lease repayments to the financier as a condition of employment.
“Unfortunately, such arrangements also give rise to a car benefit under the fringe benefits tax ( FBT) rules and employers typically look to pass some or all of this cost on to employees. As the current FBT rate is 47 percent, there may be little benefit in salary packaging a car unless you pay tax at the highest rate,” says Chapman.
“Note however that you can usually make post-tax contributions to your employer in respect of the running costs of the car which reduces the FBT; that can change the value benefit for some employees on lower tax rates. A novated leasing specialist, or your employer’s HR department, will usually be able to crunch the numbers for you.”