WOW…
Still, there is a precedent and that is from Germany 8 years ago. Not the same thing because the German owners used the Danish zero-VAT route and would have had “valid” certs of free circulation.
Confiscation is pretty aggressive and symptomatic of a corrupt or otherwise nonfunctioning tax collection system. In the UK they would assess you for the allegedly unpaid VAT and you have to pay it unless you can prove you already have (i.e. you are “guilty until proven innocent”; I think most European tax systems work like that) but assets would not be confiscated unless you can’t or won’t pay.
Lots of people don’t want to wake up this sleeping dog, but anybody buying a plane without the paperwork needs to knock 20% off the price 
I wonder if it is purely a paperwork story here.
The illicit mechanism, devised by two experts in the aeronautics sector and used by eighteen Italians, made it possible to evade the VAT to be paid to Customs as a border right for a total amount of more than 2 million euros.
Google translation, but somehow here they are talking about a “system” devised by two particular people in which 18 Italians took part in to avoid VAT? There should be more to this than a “simple” anti N-reg razzia.
I often hear/read people complaining about the lazy, corrupt, tax evading people in the south getting bailouts.
Then, when government cracks it down, it’s primarily seen as some failure or sign of non functional tax system.
I have no details about this case, but plenty of planes in Europe have never been cleared of VAT. To register one with an EASA member authority, VAT confirmation is required, so this can be conveniently avoided on N-reg.
Same with yachts.
To register one with an EASA member authority, VAT confirmation is required, so this can be conveniently avoided on N-reg.
That would be country dependent; for example in the UK you never needed VAT paid proof to go on the G-reg. And probably same with a number of other registries; where the owners have reported “interest” from the VAT inspector
Peter wrote:
Confiscation is pretty aggressive and symptomatic of a corrupt or otherwise nonfunctioning tax collection system.
It is actually quite normal that movable assets are frozen by tax authorities (technically in almost all countries obviously not by the tax authorities but by court order) if there is significant evidence of a tax debt that is a significant amount and therefore the debtor is unlikely to be able to pay it if the assets have been moved away…
The US internal revenue service is certainly very aggressive in the seizure of goods.
I believe this is the 3rd or 4th time since 2006 that the Italian tax authorities seize resident foreign registered aircraft adducing VAT claims.
In all previous cases the tax authorities lost their case in front of the court.
Just an enormous waste of owners time and public money.
Peter wrote:
Lots of people don’t want to wake up this sleeping dog, but anybody buying a plane without the paperwork needs to knock 20% off the price
You’d need to set aside a lot more than 20%.
If VAT is really owed, then there is interest an penalties on top of that. If the debt was owed a long time ago, or the evasion was deliberate, it could end up being multiples of the actual tax.
Peter wrote:
In the UK they would assess you for the allegedly unpaid VAT and you have to pay it unless you can prove you already have (i.e. you are “guilty until proven innocent”;
Unless you’re infringing airspace. 
Peter wrote:
That would be country dependent; for example in the UK you never needed VAT paid proof to go on the G-reg. And probably same with a number of other registries; where the owners have reported “interest” from the VAT inspector
So, one can register an airplane from outside the UK on to the G-register and will not need to provide any proof that UK VAT has been paid?
That’s a huge hassle, as then a buyer of a G-reg cannot be sure it has been correctly imported.
When e.g. buying a D-reg, you can rightfully assume EUVat has been paid as the LBA requires proof of it before registration.
