If you import a plane into the UK, pay import VAT on it, sell it to say Jersey or the USA, and then import it again 10 years later, you may have to pay the import VAT again. But that is not surprising to me. There was a thread on this here recently and the categorical answer was posted there.
But, if the plane never left the UK, the UK will never screw somebody to pay import VAT twice just because the UK left the EU. It has a centuries-old legal system and that sort of thing would never stand up.
But if post-Brexit you sold that plane to France, the French customer may well have to pay import VAT on it, in the same way if the plane was imported from any other non-EU country like e.g. the USA. So that’s a good point. Nobody can guess which way this would pan out… all this is to be negotiated over the coming years.
OTOH if you import the plane into a pre-Brexit UK (basically anytime within the “Article 50 invocation plus two years” timeframe) then the import VAT paid will be EU import VAT paid, and once you have the certificate for that, it should not be payable again if the plane is sold to France 10 years later. But isn’t that the same situation as in my first para above, just for France instead of the UK? Maybe a VAT specialist can comment?
Interesting angles.
As the RSPCA says: a dog plane is for life, not just for christmas 
and a plane has to be bought for the long term. Short-term you will nearly always lose a lot of money because you will have to fix the can of worms which the previous owner didn’t tell you about, and that is likely to make the VAT a small item. Same with avionics upgrades…
I’d still import to France just to be on the safe side…
Yes, but my point is that the plane will then be exported outside the EU and (upon a sale to France etc) will be re-imported into the EU, so you are back to the same situation.
I meant if I was doing it now….prior to the exit.
I suggest a search with
vat AND export AND import
(uppercase AND)
and reading the threads it produces.
However a country leaving the EU has no relevant precedent (I believe Greenland did it?).
AnthonyQ wrote:
I’d still import to France just to be on the safe side…
I’m not sure what you think that achieves?
So you import it to France now, and pay VAT in France.
Then you export it to the UK by basing it there. You pay no VAT on that transaction as France & the UK are still both part of the EU.
Then the UK leaves, and the aircraft finds itself based outside the EU.
In x years time, you decide to sell it. If someone inside the EU wants to buy it, they may well have to pay VAT again, even though you already paid it x years ago.
Yes – there is a time limit, after which if you re-import it you have to pay the VAT again.
I have just spent 15 mins looking for the relevant post but can’t find it. It was something like a few years (in the UK). I guess every country in the EU has some similar rule. It is logical to have such a rule because (a) the second import is regarded a genuine “fresh” import and (b) after the passage of certain time it will be impossible to verify the authenticity of the documentation supporting the previous VAT payment.
In short, nobody knows how this will pan out.
Looking for the nearest (but not identical, because nobody has left the EU before) parallels, does anybody know what happens if a Swiss national buys a US plane in France, pays the import VAT on it in France, then moves with it to Switzerland, and then after some years tries to sell it to somebody in say Germany? Will the German buyer get the benefit of the French C88?
Also, why should there be a difference, at the German end, between a French C88, and a UK C88, just because the UK has left the EU later?
dublinpilot wrote:
I’m not sure what you think that achieves?So you import it to France now, and pay VAT in France.
Then you export it to the UK by basing it there. You pay no VAT on that transaction as France & the UK are still both part of the EU.Then the UK leaves, and the aircraft finds itself based outside the EU.
In x years time, you decide to sell it. If someone inside the EU wants to buy it, they may well have to pay VAT again, even though you already paid it x years ago.
Yes, of course that is the worst case scenario….but my strategy has no downside assuming that the UK will not require VAT to be paid to them post-Brexit….and the upside is that VAT is paid in the EU when I come to sell in the future…. if the VAT paid is deemed to be time-expired then I am no worse off…
OTOH, if instead I pay the VAT in the UK on import, there is (IMO) a strong risk that post-Brexit the EU may not recognize the fact that VAT was paid in the EU (pre-Brexit)…if that makes sense. My opinion is based on nothing more than my perception that the EU will act vindictively towards the UK….
Disclosure: we have a home in France and in all likelihood that us where we will end up living in a few years…
Crazy how nobody mentioned anything about currency exchange…
A year and a half ago, when the only person that believed brexit would happen was Nigel Farage, a 150k USD plane would cost you 87k GBP. Today the same plane would cost you 123k GBP. I would worry less about vat and more about currency exchange if I were you (ie getting the timing right).
Finding the above vast change a little hard to believe, I did a google on
sterling to us dollar historical exchange rate
and found this
so you are no doubt right but you did pick the time span quite carefully 
and the Brexit vote is only about half of the change.
Interestingly this has probably knackered the US to Europe ferry business, except at the high end.
Also VAT issues are not the only mechanism via which one could take an external hit. One could get it from a change in registry / residence policies. You might have a G-reg based outside the UK and one day you may find the only market for it may be in just the UK, and if it is an unusual type it may be tiny. Especially if it is a non CofA type.
I think that one should buy a plane for the long term, because – short of pure luck – they make a lousy investment, so you have to recover your cost by enjoying it. Most planes fall in value quickly, and they fall in value even faster if you don’t fly them.
