What I'm meaning is that your employer buys you a car and gives you a credit card for gas and car service.

US? UK? Elsewhere in the EU?

We have it here in Finland but the state taxation is hard (as all taxation is over here).

Here in the US, some employers, depending in your position w/the company will either give you a company car, or issue you a "car allowance", along with that you will also get a company credit card for gas and travel expenses - but all the charges must be work related (or at least they should). One of my buddies works for Coke and they give him a Prius, not very fond of it, but i guess they want to go green. Either way, it's a very nice perk to have. :cool:

I believe this tradition is quite well entrenched in the U.K. where the term ,,executive car`` has a specific meaning if my understanding is correct.

Yes, company cars are very common here. The tax is high but it's still very worthwhile and you have no worries about insurance, damage, servicing etc.

It's possible to have all your gas (sic) paid for by the company too, but it really isn't worth it nowadays unless your mileage is high because of the additional tax on that.

I would guess that most E60s in the UK are company cars and the smaller diesel engines are consequently very popular.

Cars are either chosen from a list or the driver can choose up to a certain list price, which makes the selection of extras a major exercise...

I have a company car, which happens to be my E60. Well, actually, I own the company so.... :lol:

Very common practice here in the Netherlands to hand out company cars. The way it works here is:

Employers engage with lease companies as fleet managers and employees are then entitled to lease a car with a monthly lease payment of X, where X depends on your grade of employment. The car is yours to run as you please, you get a fuel card that pays for all the fuel (i.e. you never part with your own cash) and all maintenance and insurance is paid for directly by the lease company (this element is reflected in the per-month lease payment). Of course, you get taxed for this - if you use your company car for more than 500 personal kilometres a year, 25% of the catalog value of the car is deemed as "additional income from employment" and you pay tax on it. The employee's only cash cost is therefore their tax bill.

Many companies also give the option of taking the car allowance as cash, which is taxed as additional income. How the employee spends it is then up to them.

Great example is my own situation, my car allowance entitles me to a 520i, but I opted to take the cash allowance option and bought myself a used 530d instead. The main difference in cash cost to me is the hit I am taking on the depreciation but it's worth it!!!

Over here the benefit for a company car is calculated
1,4 % of the cars retail price plus 270 euro / month.

My car was around 64.000 Euros, so that would mean
64,000 x 0.014 = 896 + 270 = 1,166 / month = 14,000 Euros a year.

This sum would be add to my gross income, so I would pay in taxes for it more than 50 %,
7,000 a year meaning 585 Euro / month but including gas / insurance / service etc.

But a company car would also mean a minus (something) in the salary.

For the use of your own car in Finland, the compensation is 44 euro cents / kilometer,
and that is tax free.