VAT for N registerd aircraft?
 

Hi all,
as you know from the other post I'm about to to buy my first airplane. Most probably it will be N registerd. The vendor is quoting the price excluding VAT. I would like to know: how much VAT should I pay on it?

If it is new 15%.

If it is second hand and the person selling the aircraft is registered for VAT - 15%. If they are not - nil.

If it is not an excluded type you might be able to avoid VAT by utilising the services of a Danish company.

The registration is not relevant.

And if it's being delivered from outside the EU, either by air or as cargo, you have to pay VAT on those costs as well.

What about vat free through Denmark? Is that still possible??????

Vat
 

Yes, Importing via Denmark is still an option until Jan 2010.

Lots of Dansih companies offer this service for about 5% of the cost of aircraft.

Still saving about 10%. Will have ferry costs as well though.

SP

You're a brave man (or woman). Why not wait and see the outcome of the EASA proposals on N-reg aircraft/Licenses? You may be buying something you cannot use in Europe soon.

Just a thought.

"You're a brave man (or woman). Why not wait and see the outcome of the EASA proposals on N-reg aircraft/Licenses? You may be buying something you cannot use in Europe soon."

Squeejee, do you honestly, in all seriousness think that this heavy-handed EASA sabre-rattlling nonsense will ever come to pass? Personally I don't and I would never allow the possibility of it happening to influence my decision. If this potential catastrophe for practical IFR in europe ever did come to pass then as the owner of an N-reg aircraft you have the largest GA market in the world (USA) to sell it back into.

SB

Scooter Boy
 

"If this potential catastrophe for practical IFR in europe ever did come to pass then as the owner of an N-reg aircraft you have the largest GA market in the world (USA) to sell it back into."

Yes sure you do, by which time you have paid for transportation from and to USA, and paid the chancellor VAT (ok you may be able to avoid some of that if you're smart). So unless you are talking about an expensive aircraft, the costs involved are a fair whack of the purchase/sale proceeds.
The easy way is to wait a few months.

I certainly hope the EASA is full of sh1t, but knowing euro-enthusiasm for regulations, you can never be sure. GA is such a soft target that their climbdown from total governance of the euro skies could be to just hit GA.

Call me a pessimist.

It will be far longer than a few months before we will know where EASA is heading.

A few years, more likely.

GA is indeed a soft target but the EASA proposals are going to hit the bigger stuff, which is far more politically powerful. This is what (reportedly) clobbered the previous "kick out N-reg" proposals; one in France c. 2004 and one in the UK c. 2005. GA did make a huge fuss but I bet you anything you like that the real action was done behind the scenes, at top political levels.

That's why this stuff is so opaque; we can read and comment on these proposals until we are blue in the face, and worry like hell, and a year or two later either something totally different emerges or nothing at all changes. EASA claims to be immune to external pressure but in reality they are an agency of the EU and are thus controllable by the usual political interests which have always dominated the EU.

Did you see that bit in the papers about the latest scandal in Brussels, where it was discovered they used vast quantities of tropical rainforest timber to decorate their HQ? The place is run by corrupt crooked bent officials who do as they please and sod everybody else. This is normally a bad thing because you get a lack of transparency in decisionmaking, but it is also a good thing because it means that pragmatic political interests win over in the end.

If it was not for the non-AOC light jet crowd, IFR GA as we know it would be dead in Europe long ago.

I am a pessimist too, or at least a realist I hope, but sometimes you see something too good to be true and it usually is, and equally sometimes you see a proposal which is just too horrid to be feasible - and it usually is too.

This seems to have wandered off -topic and the question wasn't answered.

Glex - the letters/numbers painted on the side make no difference at all to the VAT status of any aircraft. What counts is the current VAT status of the machine, its location and the VAT status of both the buyer and seller.

If the aircraft is here (EU) and VAT paid and sold by a private seller (not registered for VAT) then the price includes tax; you don't pay it (they are not allowed to charge it on top) and cannot reclaim it (even if you export the airframe).

If you buy in the US and import it you must pay VAT to the Revenue - in any EU country you please. In this case you may fit the Danish criteria for a zero rate of VAT.

If you buy something here, from a VAT registered seller (dealer or business owner) they will have paid the VAT and reclaimed it - so t hey, in turn, charge you. Unless you are VAT registered you cannot reclaim the tax.

HTH