That’s a gross over-simplification. If you tell everybody you bump into that you have a plane, they will regard you as a stupid arrogant bragger. Most likely this will happen less in the USA than in Europe. Same if you drive a 150k Aston Martin.
One German pilot transferred a freshly bought M-reg plane (a priceless reg) to D-reg because, he said, Germany is full of people who envy you and would keep reporting you for tax fiddling. He spent a few k doing the transfer. Am I to argue with a native and very smart and savvy German businessman that he was? His business was aviation related, too.
Here in the UK you need to be fairly careful. N Europe seems generally similar to that. In southern Europe, especially the more eastern parts, showing your wealth is more accepted. You see this everywhere you go. And, in general again, people from the former USSR, when on holiday, are the least reluctant to show they have money, and you see this everywhere too.
Let’s say you have some sort of hereditary peerage title – a Lord, a Duke, a Prince, etc. Will you call yourself by that title everywhere you go and on every aviation forum you are on? Discretion is needed too. Some forums will drive you out for that.
So it’s not a stereotype. It’s a matter of degree and where and how you do it.
One German pilot transferred a freshly bought M-reg plane (a priceless reg) to D-reg because, he said, Germany is full of people who envy you and would keep reporting you for tax fiddling.
Isn’t it strange that I have never met such a person in Germany, I mean beeing German, lving here all my life and having airplanes in the family since 1968?
I did not mean to say that people should run around “bragging”. But “hiding” (or “not letting other people know”) about my airplane is something different altogether, isn’t it?
I have also never had any problems with my name. And that’s what it is, a name. But even IF there ever was a person who has a problem with my name, i don’t consider that my problem. (Noble titels were transfomed to family names in 1918 in Germany.)
One German pilot transferred a freshly bought M-reg plane (a priceless reg) to D-reg because, he said, Germany is full of people who envy you and would keep reporting you for tax fiddling.
I cannot tell you (because there are no words) how much i hate that “envy” accusation against everybody else brought forward by those people. He is stealing from all of us by evading his taxes (and there is no other reason around here to put one’s plane on the Manx or Cayman register) yet wants everybody else to look bad by calling him envious. People with a good income who don’t pay their taxes yet benefit from all positive aspects of our society are greedy parasites.
I don’t think there is any tax evasion being M-reg as compared with D-reg.
The VAT treatment is the same, etc.
For me, going G to N changed nothing except 5% tax on the insurance. UK tax wise the move is regarded as transparent.
AFAIK it is just perception.
Peter wrote:
So it’s not a stereotype. It’s a matter of degree and where and how you do it.
It is a stereotype. Stereotypes are usually matters of degrees though. I think you’re both right.
The tendency to display wealth (“bragging”, if you will) is not very pronounced in Germany and is much more pronounced in, say, Russia. Certainly that tendency leads to stereotypes of Russian wealthy businessmen pompously parading what they got. And certainly those people exist but I also know many well-off, but very modest Russians – of course!
There’s also a certain German “type”, especially those who came to wealth unexpectedly, who can’t keep it to themselves (again, I’m describing a stereotype of course). I agree though that it is generally “valued” in Germany to be modest about these things.
Alexis has a point though in saying that’s not the same as “having to hide it” for whatever reasons.
I don’t think there is any tax evasion being M-reg as compared with D-reg.
Whenever you register something expensive to your name (or your companies name) in Germany (house, aeroplane) the tax office will know about it. Since they know your declared income from the last decade or so they might become suspicious if income and amount invested differ by a large factor. Someone will be sent after you to investigate. Spending your black money in a country which does not co-operate with European authorities (like “M” and “VP”) will save you that trouble.
I didn’t know that the German LBA reports to the German tax office. That’s an astonishing level of State surveillance. Here in the UK, stock market transactions are reported (for capital gains tax), interest credited (for income tax) but there is no surveillance of personal purchases apart from houses.
The above procedure also means that owners of N-regs (which Germany is full of) come under suspicion. I would not regard that as particularly healthy, because there are many reasons for being N-reg and the vast majority of Germans have not bought their non D-reg planes with the proceeds of tax evasion etc. One prominent poster here lives in Germany but is G-reg so he would come under suspicion too…
It’s completely obvious that nobody who wants to pay all his taxes will register his airplane on the Cayman Islands. There’s not many other convincing reasons …
It’s completely obvious that nobody who wants to pay all his taxes will register his airplane on the Cayman Islands
It may be “completely obvious” to you but it isn’t so clear cut. You have posted many times your plane is G-reg. I would not for a moment think you do anything dodgy but based on W-N’s post, I wonder what some would think? With the G you get the EASA pilot paper usage but no reporting to the German tax office.
One big reason for non domestic regs is confidentiality / privacy. Most wealthy people have complex financial affairs and don’t want everybody to be able to find out who owns what.
Also many companies have their bizjets owned “at a distance” to avoid media criticism of profligacy.
Well, G-reg is something completely different than Cayman islands :-)
It costs me MORE to fly G-reg than D-reg!
Well, I took the money out of my company and for that I had to pay 25 percent taxes to the German tax office, because I pay all taxes in Germany. They don’t care what I do with the rest. And there is NO tax on airplanes in Germany, or on expensive cars.
The media is much more interested in airplanes and yachts from the Cayman islands, and it’s so easy to know who’s the owner, I see no advantage. It’s more of a disadvantage if you care about your image.
