Malibuflyer wrote:
As a taxpayer I don’t want to be paying for hundreds of tax authority employees trying to trace down ownership chains of privately held planes to figure out if the original importer paid VAT or not.
Off topic point: Tax authority employees generally are worth their own salary several times over, if you go by the amount of otherwise “lost” taxes they collect from (attempts of) tax avoidance. It is long since known that, if the German authorities hired an appropriate number of tax authority employees, we would have a much higher tax income.
Peter wrote:
There is precedent for going after the “importer” who didn’t pay import VAT.
That is a different and very special thing – it was about a company (and not an individual) that actually did not pay any VAT but claimed that this is legal due to the Danish law at that time. They did not chase someone who claimed they actually paid something but could not prove it…
There is precedent for going after the “importer” who didn’t pay import VAT. See this thread. That was regarding the Danish zero-VAT route.
Whether they go after people who bought the plane from the previous (importing) owner isn’t clear. The alleged tax evasion was committed by the original importer, after all.
I too cannot understand why people fail to keep important paperwork, but actually a lot of apparently smart people do run their whole lives like that 
And those who want to hide something will have “lost” the papers anyway…
Rwy20 wrote:
In my very personal opinion (worth what you paid for it), if a private individual buys an aircraft in the EU from another private individual, and the plane stays based in the EU, then the seller should continue to be liable
It’s for many reasons much easier the way it is. As a taxpayer I don’t want to be paying for hundreds of tax authority employees trying to trace down ownership chains of privately held planes to figure out if the original importer paid VAT or not.
Even if people that are basically angry they can’t find a loophole do complain from time to time, current system is extremely simple: For every plane that is manufactured outside Germany there is an essential document called “Tax receipt”. You keep it next to the CoA and never touch it if you don’t sell the plane. Those “I paid tens of thousands of $$$ VAT but unfortunately lost the receipt” are just childish.
Would you also propose that the current owner doesn’t need to present the CoA because the previous owner should have had it already?
I see. Thanks.
That is how I understood your original question. So my original answer in post #4 unfortunately still stands.
The only “positive” is that a plane which has Swiss VAT paid never loses this status, contrary to the “EU VAT paid” status which can technically run out every few years (3 or 5) if the plane never came back to the EU, so you could be forced to pay the VAT again (and again, and again). So at least if you base the plane you’re buying in Germany, you can land with it in Switzerland if you wish. But you still have to pay EU VAT.
The airplane I am looking at is in switzerland and it does not have eu vat paid yet. I wondered as swiss resident I could base it in Germany.
Peter wrote:
If the plane has been physically sitting in Germany for a long time, and you can prove it, is that not relevant?
Could be an indication that VAT has been paid at some point. In my very personal opinion (worth what you paid for it), if a private individual buys an aircraft in the EU from another private individual, and the plane stays based in the EU, then the seller should continue to be liable to the state for any VAT not paid before the sale and not the buyer. Since there is no VAT on sales between private individuals in the EU. A possible importation of a plane without paying what is due would be a kind of tax fraud, but committed by the person having imported the good originally. Except if there is criminal intent, the buyer cannot be held liable for tax fraud committed by another individual.
The thing is, @By9468840 never stated that the plane he is looking at is based in Germany, neither for a short or a long time, so your question doesn’t seem relevant to his case. At least that is how I understand this:
By9468840 wrote:
I started to eyeball some HB reg aircraft for purchase
after 6 months having your plane based in Germany, you have to pay the VAT there. Your nationality or residence can only have an impact in triggering this requirement even sooner.
I recall, from some previous VAT threads, this is actually true, and you get the full 6m only if your passport is from nowhere near the EU. If you are an EU passport holder then you get much less and e.g. ferry pilots with EU passports have to be careful. There is some process which enables a “safe” transit; I don’t recall details but have a vague recollection it involves some sort of bank guarantee…
EU member states registries refuse to register unless the plane’s VAT is paid/declared
Some certainly do not, like the UK 
which is full of planes imported without VAT paid. There was an amnesty in the 1980s… plenty of old posts.
I am a Swiss resident but I’ve always kept my aircraft under D-reg in Germany
If the plane has been physically sitting in Germany for a long time, and you can prove it, is that not relevant?
Rwy20 wrote:
The plane’s registration will not change anything about customs status.
In practice, I think EU member states registries refuse to register unless the plane’s VAT is paid/declared. I can imagine that it will not go into their procedures that a plane on their register, but is based outside the EU, will not have VAT paid/declared. Or maybe they will accept a statement from customs or some such, but that’s a gamble.
