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Why do some airports demand a VAT number to sell you avgas?

I don’t see an obvious reason why using one’s company VAT number is illegal. They ask for a VAT number so you give it to them. On the form where you put your details you put the company name and address. Everything will check out then.

The fact that the flight is not on company business is between you and your company. It is no different to having Amazon deliver everything to your office.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

I’m just pointing out the ridiculousness of it. Who’s going to care if you use a random (but passes checkdigit) VAT number when you’re paying for fuel, privately, and also at the same time paying all taxes and VAT. It’s not like you’re evading tax or doing anything fraudulent, you’re just trying to get around some boneheaded bureaucracy that was put in place by a fuel supplier (which itself is a private company, not the law or the tax authorities).

Andreas IOM

Yes; I don’t understand why Spain (and others) is doing this. It’s a deep misunderstanding of how VAT works. Some twat decided that a VAT # is required, without realising that there is such a thing as non VAT registered customers.

The world is full of stupid or incompetent people, always has been, and many of them work in places where we, pilots, have to interact with them. They are largely protected by the magic “S” word (safety). I don’t have an issue with that; it’s all in a day’s work. One “situation” I am dealing with is soon going to go to a CCJ because nobody there can be bothered to look in their incoming goods dept (and they actually said that).

The bit I don’t get is how this practice has managed to carry on for so many years. That takes astonishing stupidity over a wide area of human endeavour

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Hitch wrote:

Seemingly the fuel operatives local software on the computer demands that a certain field be completed.

It could be that simple… i.e. not a people problem but a computer problem. If all the boxes can’t be filled, then the sale can’t be completed. I’ve had online web sites where I couldn’t place an order because there was no way to complete the online form. This was common with US web sites written by programmers unaware of a world outside the US borders.

LSZK, Switzerland

Peter wrote:

The checksum for the VAT number is prob99 public domain, so if the purpose is purely temporary, you could just generate one… Unfortunately one can do a lookup back to the company name, and possibly its address, so this method would be usable only if you are leaving the country in question right afterwards

Any if the country is not in the EU? Is there a source for this lookup that works worldwide? I can’t imagine these locations have a whole list of web addresses depending on the non-EU country involved. E.g. how about an N-reg giving a “fictive” US VAT number for a “fictive” US firm?

LSZK, Switzerland

The same applies to the taxman software it checks if you have paid no taxes and then go and check your VAT digits, no money no worries !

The funny thing is on the apron everybody looks at you like it is the first time they discovered the VAT problem :)

Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

Any if the country is not in the EU?

AFAIK, “VAT” as we know it is purely an EU thing.*

Lots of countries have consumption taxes but the scheme whereby a supplier should not charge VAT if the customer is a VAT registered one and is in another EU country, and there is a centrally verifiable registration number system, and the whole system being pretty tightly run, is probably unusual. Actually the verification part is relatively recent; many years ago there was no way to check.

* I vaguely recall Norway and Israel having had some arrangement, relevant to trade with the UK, involving EUR1/EUR2 forms, but it is many years since we had to deal with these at work. We sell a lot to Norway (actually our best (best in every way, not just buying a lot) customers in Europe are in Norway and Switzerland) and that process is now totally smooth, with no VAT charged. But they also have VAT numbers, curiously, which is not necessary to get a zero VAT invoice since they are non EU.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

AFAIK, “VAT” as we know it is purely an EU thing.*

Huh? If Wikipedia is to be believed, almost every country in the world applies VAT. The most notable exceptions are the USA and several Middle Eastern countries.

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

Peter wrote:

HOWEVER (and I have written this before) – I got a strange situation about 10 years ago, at Caglieri LIEE, where they hassled my company for months afterwards for evidence that it was a commercial flight. So kept telling them to f*** off because it was not a commercial flight. I merely gave them the VAT # which they demanded. And I paid the VAT. No idea what that was about and they eventually gave up

It is funny you mention that, I am being chased on this from Cagliari since February for exactly the same…

LFHN - Bellegarde - Vouvray France

Huh? If Wikipedia is to be believed, almost every country in the world applies VAT. The most notable exceptions are the USA and several Middle Eastern countries.

Huh? (not an expression I normally use; lots of people take it the wrong way). See rest of what I posted…

I am being chased on this from Cagliari since February for exactly the same…

That’s absolutely hilarious. We should do a EuroGA fly-in to LIEE and present them with lots of VAT numbers and tie their admin down for the next 10 years

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom
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