Peter wrote:
* where the plane was always owned by VAT registered bodies
- where the plane was at some stage owned by a non VAT registered body
To a private individual, the latter planes will be more expensive because somebody along the line lost the VAT so they want to get their loss back
A private individual will have to pay the VAT when purchasing the former plane (from a VAT registered business – like with a computer or car). I’d venture that will have the biggest (c.a. 20%) impact on the amount of money paid by said private individual.
The only case where there would be no VAT is a sale between two private persons, with the (reasonable) assumption that the seller took care of the VAT (either paid it or got it exempted, as when returning from living outside the EU for more than 12 months – I believe that is the case with e.g. @C210_Flyer – and that also meant he could not have sold it for 12 months after he brought it in, else all due taxes would need to be paid). Whew, I hope I didn’t overly complicate things.
Since most planes I see for sale are listed as “VAT free” (so, basically, the net price) are they all owned by VAT entities, and not by private owners? Granted that me looking mostly at C172’s might skew things, with UL planes things might be different.
This is an interesting thread. No-one here seems certain that an innocent private (not VAT-registered) buyer could not be pursued by VAT collectors in any EU country, in the event that some previous owner did not (or allegedly did not) fulfill his/her obligations. If such pursuit is possible, this would be contrary to the principles of VAT on other goods. A fortiori, for country B to claim that country A applied the wrong VAT rate – Italy claiming that Denmark should not have zero-rated certain aircraft – is the road to VAT chaos.
Last year I was thinking of buying from a private German seller a German registered US-manufactured plane, that I would have changed to N-register. The owner said he had paid German VAT on original importation many years ago – but he could not produce any documents to support this. He asserted that the German authorities would not have allowed its registration unless VAT had been paid. But I reckoned that even if this were true, such indirect evidence would be no use when confronted by les Douanes on a bleak airfield somewhere. So that ended my interest, I reckoned this plane could not be moved to the N-register without inviting trouble. Tax paperwork is essential, for aircraft manufactured outside Europe.
Bluebeard wrote:
If such pursuit is possible, this would be contrary to the principles of VAT on other goods.
Not really. Around 2007 when the iPhone appeared but was not yet widely available in Europe, it was very popular to smuggle them. Customs in Frankfurt would explicitly ask for iPhones and proof that you purchased them in Europe and not outside.
Bluebeard wrote:
Last year I was thinking of buying from a private German seller a German registered US-manufactured plane, that I would have changed to N-register. […] So that ended my interest, I reckoned this plane could not be moved to the N-register without inviting trouble.
Carrying the previous German registration paperwork should have been more than enough.
Bluebeard wrote:
Tax paperwork is essential, for aircraft manufactured outside Europe.
For aircraft imported into the EU. European built aircraft such as Socata and Diamond are sold outside the EU and then imported back which poses the same problem. Peter stated several times that Socata aircraft under N-reg were not the target of the French VAT checks but I would disagree. A lot of airplanes find their way back to the geography where they have a critical mass. A lot of Thielert DA42s came back from the US and probably the same is true for TBs.
Peter stated several times that Socata aircraft under N-reg were not the target of the French VAT checks
I never said that.
What I said is that a Socata cannot get a C88/IM4 and cannot be “non EU VAT paid” – unless formally exported and re-imported.
And F-reg Socatas (or F-reg anything) cannot be targeted for VAT because their VAT status was supposedly checked at the DGAC registration (not that would stop a dumb official doing it).
And I said that the “yield” on checking Socatas is going to be lower than the yield on checking US-made planes – obviously.
For sure, Socatas have been hit by French police. Not just N-reg, although there are reports of them hitting only the N-regs at some airfield. The usual difficulty here is that while ~800 people (mostly pilots) read EuroGA daily, a few % only post, and most people don’t talk about this stuff.
Which countries require proof of EU VAT paid at registration? So far we have
France
Germany??
Germany does require proof of VAT payment before allowing any plane to be registered in their register
see point 3. f. in http://www.lba.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/Formulare/T4/Info/Info02.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=2 (unfortunately only in German…)
I have been subject to a customs inspection last year in Hamburg:
I arrived from Paderborn in my freshly bought used N-registered airplane and was approached by customs upon arrival on the apron. It turned out that the Hamburg customs office is maintaining a database of all non-EU registered airplanes, that have flown through Hamburg. All planes that are not included in the database will be checked on their first arrival at EDDH if VAT was due for them and if yes, how this has been paid or not.
Unfortunately I had no document with me showing any VAT payment of the previous owner.
But the customs officials were really friendly and helpful to me. After noting down all my details, I was released but with the requirement to show proof of VAT payment within one week. The were especially interested in the “AT-number”. This is the id number of the file usually opened when an airplane is being imported into the EU (customs declaration). By that number all european customs agencies, I was told, can get access to the declaration and can check the correct payment of the VAT.
As I phoned the customs office in the afternoon after I got home, they already found out that the plane was on the German register before and VAT must have been paid for that reason.
Thanks to the original importer, I was able to get a copy of the original customs declaration with the magical number on it…
Now I just carry the copy of the customs decleration in the airplane with me, but so far I have never been checked again…
I checked the LBA webste (German CAA)
It says explicitely that for registration in Germany there has to be proof that the a/c went through customs. If there’s an attempt to register an a/c without the proof of customs the airplane will be reported to the customs office.
Which means that there is no way to register an airplane without paying VAT.
That merely means
F-reg
D-reg
will always be import-VAT-paid unless exported from the EU which (given the registrations in question) would mean exported to the Channel Islands, or one of the non-EU bits of Europe (pre-EU Croatia, Serbia, etc). Not the USA because nobody will keep a F-reg or D-reg in the USA.
So my earlier comment about an F-reg being pointless to target is wrong. It could be exactly the same as the G-reg guy I know whose plane spent time in Alderney.
AFAIK, if you register a plane on F or D and
and you export it to a non-EU country, then VAT becomes due again upon re-import. Is that correct?
Peter wrote:
and you export it to a non-EU country, then VAT becomes due again upon re-import. Is that correct?
Yes, export out of the Union is one case where the “free circulation” of goods terminates.
