I fly mostly for a UK AOC holder, but do a little private (corporate) flying in a Hawker on the Isle of Man register. The aircraft is EU VAT paid, and rightly enough in Rotterdam we were ramp checked last month.
They asked the question (to which I could not answer/chose not to answer) as to why the aircraft was EU VAT paid but the operator was registered in a non EU country. I didn't know SAFA inspectors were concerned about aircraft VAT, when checked in LBG it is always customs.
Is this a new gotcha to catch out third country crews operating in Europe? (I'm UK licenced and F/O was FAA certified, both with IOM validations of course, both British passport holders)
This operator keeps a trip folder to give to the SAFA inspectors. I'm wondering if the VAT certificate was not in that folder, would they even have asked?