Car VAT/TVA Avoidance?

[Jon 1]

I read information some time ago that you can buy a new car tax free, say in Scandinavia, and drive it in France on export plates for a year. After a year of this process there is then no TVA to pay. Can anyone confirm if this is possible and if so what are the potential problems?

[Richardbk]

you can buy tax free and keep on export in France plates for 1 year these are the Red'TT' plates. - this is standard within all EU states. However you have to have an address outside of the EU and in theory the car has to be exported out of the EU.

You can only re-register in the EU by showing the tax has been paid - or keeping it out of the EU long enough that the authorities don't care too much - several years.

However, in exporting out of the EU to elsewhere will most likely incurr import taxes on the receiving country. Many non-EU seconded people working temporaily in France will buy TVA free, but will eventually export the vehicle back to their home country - but usually there is some import taxes to pay.

There is another way which is to get a job as a diplomat or as staff of a recognised international organisation (in france these are the green plates, CMD, CD or K) which means that you do not pay TVA on the new price, but you do have to pay the TVA on the 2nd hand price when you evetually sell it on. In addition top make cars such as merceedes, BMW etc have a diplomatic price lists that in addition are 15-20% cheaper than list.

regs

Richard

[Mpprh]

Hi

I bought a new car tax free in Sweden and imported it into France. As an EU resident, the tax free plates lasted about 1 month.

The only benefit is that the French TVA is based on the original tax free price.

At the time I did it, the Swedish tax free price (Peugeot 406HDI) was about FF 30,000 less than the French tax free price.

So the saving was FF30,000 + about FF 6,000 on the VAT.

Differences in the basic car price depend on exchange rates and market positioning. It is not easy to exactly match specification to make the comparison;

Peter





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