Expert group opinion: personnel loan for a home battery or charging station

Local contact

Jan-Bertram Rietveld

19 Oct 2023
Subject Tax updates
Categories Tax

The Tax and Customs Administration has published an Expert Group opinion on a personnel loan granted for the purchase of a home battery or charging station.

An employer provided a personnel loan to an employee with an electric car for the purchase of a home battery or charging station. The employee pays less interest to the employer for this loan than they would to a commercial lender.

A home battery is a battery which can store electricity. This is fixed to a wall inside a home. Usually, a home battery will be combined with solar panels to store the self-generated energy and thus not send it back to the grid. The home battery is connected to the power grid.

There are two types of charging stations:

  • An upright pole, usually cast in concrete (pole model), and
  • A wall-mounted charging point (wall model, also known as a wallbox or homebox)

Both are connected to the power grid.

Question

Can the employer designate the interest benefit gained by the employee as a final levy amount within the meaning of Section 31 to Section 3.123(1)(f)  of the Wages and Salaries Tax Act 1964 (hereafter: LB 1964) if the employee uses the loan for a home battery or charging station?

Answer

In principle, the employer can designate the interest benefit as final levy salary to the extent that the employee uses the loan for a home battery or a wallbox (wall-mounted model). This is not possible if (and insofar as) the employee uses the loan for a pole model, because then the interest benefit could be designated as a deductible expense in the meaning of Section 3.120 of the 2001 Income Tax Act (hereafter: IB 2001), (Ed: i.e. in the context of an owner-occupier home acquisition debt or mortgage).