Peter wrote:
The total absence of Italians posting anything here is significant.
Maybe because they don’t want to wake sleeping dogs or get attention to themselves. Not unlike the “omerta” certain criminal organisations impose on the population. Shut up or we’ll get you.
The Italian finance police has shown over recent years that they are a very ambitious bunch of folks who often enough will even go borderline or outright break laws to achieve their ends. And most of the time the reports about this came from outside Italy. e.g. when Italian financial police acted in official capacity on foreign territory against it’s citizens, they did so in Switzerland and were caught out which caused a huge diplomatic row. They have done it elsewhere too. I recall the times when the luxury tax and other stuff they did caused their own tourist resorts to suffer massively as Italians were too scared to turn up there as places like Cortina reeked of financial police agents all over the place.
So messing with them or even ignoring reports like this can land people in massive problems. I suppose the consequence for many will be to avoid Italy while there are those incertainties, as you would with any third world country where rules are written in pencil and enforced with ruthless methods.
Good to know thanks !
Ibra wrote:
What about aircraft with EU VAT paid that has left EU to US, Africa, Norway, Switzerland, UK…for more than 6 months?
The period after which “Community Goods” loose their status after being exported out of the EU is 2 years IIRC. So your aircraft with EU VAT paid would loose its EU VAT paid status after two years. Although in practice, if it stayed on an EU register, I’m not sure anybody would notice / one would get caught.
The specific topic of this thread – [non]-recognition of certificates of free circulation for VAT – is quite an, ahem, specific thing.
This is why I am trying to keep this on-topic!
In most modern tax regimes there is a provision that a transaction which has no commercial purpose is deemed void for tax avoidance. The UK adopted this in the 1970s, following some famous schemes to avoid corporation tax. But there are limits on its application.
This is how this thread started: Germany applied this principle and raided some people who did the Danish route (which ended in 2010). Probably, Germany could do this again, anytime…
The UK never did it; maybe it was below their radar, and there is also the 6 year principle (apart from fraud/forgery/etc, the taxpayer is in the clear, broadly speaking). Also reportedly HMRC looked into it, got legal advice, and was told they had to recognise the Danish CofFC under EU law. The UK rarely does/did something in breach of EU law; it was perhaps the most “EU-reg-compliant” country of all of them, implementing almost every regulation out of Brussels, often at a disadvantage to UK companies 
The reports of Italy’s reported recent raids are poorly reported and could be rumours, even malicious ones, and they could instead be related to either their “luxury tax” (see link) or to non-recognition of EU VAT paid. We just don’t know… The total absence of Italians posting anything here is significant.
Airborne_Again wrote:
Different customs authorities clearly put very different weight on this. I have never heard this issue being discussed in Sweden.
Sometimes, however, priorities of authorities change. Italy obviously has not had a strong weight on it as well – as they did not on building permits but in some reasons they do now.
The problem is, that in most legislations in Europe if the authorities all of the sudden figure out that they do care, “you did not do so 10 years ago, so you must not go after me now…”
Peter wrote:
I have enough to do as admin.
You dedication is a huge asset to all users of EuroGA, and much appreciated.
There is in the UK but only if the nondisclosure was not deliberate. If deliberate then there is no limitation (in theory). The UK actually had an amnesty in the 1980s, IIRC.
I would expect Sweden must be the same otherwise tax fraud / document forgery could not be pursued after x years. Possible, but unusual.
The last report I got was from somebody who was banned from EuroGA some years ago, for being rude/offensive for ages, and I am just too tired of dealing with these people to let them back in. I have enough to do as admin. But he was passing on info from someone who read it somewhere else
Lots and lots of Italians read EuroGA every day and if nobody comments then they are either doing it intentionally (why, I have no idea, but very little on the internet surprises me – cue the joke about the Orthodox guy who builds 2 churches so one he goes to and the other he avoids) or this “court ruling” never happened. It would be pretty weird, and open to a challenge in Brussels.
Malibuflyer wrote:
It’s a not too well kept secret, that there are a significant number of aircraft in Europe (both foreign reg as well as national reg) for which the owner does not have a proof of VAT paid or a certificate of free circulation. Some of them are even 2nd or 3rd generation owners who bought the plane from a European seller (but not a business because then they had a VAT receipt) bona fide.
Different customs authorities clearly put very different weight on this. I have never heard this issue being discussed in Sweden. Certainly none of our club aircraft have proof of free circulation among their aircraft documents and no one have ever asked for it abroad. Possibly we have it on file somewhere…
Anyway, there must be a limitation period for tax debts just like any other debt.
Ok – so as of now it is “an email by somebody” …
Not really shocking – esp. as such a Supreme Court decision would obviously not only affect airplanes but also boats, cars, etc. and therefore if the court really had made such a decision it is highly unlikely that the topic would not have made it into “mainstream media”.
