Companies and governments around the world are transitioning to an electric company car fleet. However, employees expect to be reimbursed for the electricity they use at home to charge their company car. There are multiple options to do so, described below.
❌ The worst approach:
Some companies pay a 'lump sum' (= forfait) to their employees. This is a fixed amount of money that the company thinks will cover the employee's home electricity costs for charging the company car. The Belgian government has expressed disapproval of this method, because:
It is an estimation, not based on actual charged amount of electricity (kWh) of the car
It does not use any data about the amount of kWh charged or distance driven by the specific company car
It could be considered as an additional form of employee compensation, and is therefore likely subject to taxation.
✅ The perfect approach:
A correct method is to look at the actual energy charging (kWh) of the car, and reimburse this amount of electricity. This can be done in multiple ways:
Datasource | Pro's | Con's |
Charging cable | + mobile, you can take it wherever you want | - Expensive - Slow charging speeds - Prone to fraud |
AC home charger | + Relatively fast charging + Automatic payout flows | - Expensive hardware - Requires paid software - Prone to fraud |
The vehicle itself | + Accurate, no fraud risk | - Not yet compatible with every car brand |
Once the amount of kWh's have been captured, the energy rate used for reimbursement needs to be defined. This is the trickiest part of the job. In contrast to define the amount of kWh's charged, it is much harder to accurately define the cost per kWh paid by each employee. This can differ significantly across different countries in the world.
🇧🇪 Belgium
Especially in Belgium the energy rate differ a lot between different households. Some factors impacting this pricing are:
Price differences between energy providers
Differences in contract type (e.g. fixed, variable, peak rates)
Variation depending on timing of energy consumption (e.g. nightly rate)
Price evolution over time (e.g. energy price increases seen in early 2022)
Other cost components on top of the kWh price (e.g. taxes, distribution, ...)
And more...
Therefore, it is very hard in Belgium - nearly impossible - to calculate the exact cost paid by individual employees to charge their (PH)EV. As an alternative, the industry in Belgium started to use the kWh rate defined by CREG, the Belgian government agency overlooking the electricity prices. This is a market reference price which fluctuates every month.
You'll find more information about the CREG rate here. Good to know: if you use the automatic reimbursements via EEVEE, we can apply the CREG rate automatically, bypassing the need for manual lookup and configuration.
The EEVEE system to reimburse employees has been set up in collaboration with advisors from Deloitte.
And for more info on the tax rule in Belgium, please check this article.
We also advise our Belgian customers to add this clause to the car policy for full transparency, for example: "The reimbursement rate of the home charging costs is based on the actual cost with a maximum of the CREG-rate of that month."
The materials and information on this website have been prepared or assembled by EEVEE Mobility and are intended for informational purposes only. EEVEE Mobility is not responsible for the legal or fiscal accuracy of the information and cannot be held liable or responsible for any errors or omissions in the content of this website.