Importing a NEW Car from Europe

Anan1

tvr wrote:

the 320d is a nice run around , can you buy that ex vat in Holland , pay vat in portugal and then register and tax the rhd in portugal or spanish summer home , then drive home to Ireland and insure in Ireland and run on port or spanish plates?

And then have it impounded by customs.

G Luxel

Cars sold here are third world spec. Extremely basic and options you either pay through the nose for or else they are not available. Is , for example, an M3 exactly the same here as one you would buy in Germany? It may be called M3 over there and be completely loaded and sell for 45 K, but is an M3 likely to be the same here but at treble the price? More than likely it is, and options that would alone buy a I series.

ninty9er

If I was your boss, Id buy in the most expensive place (assuming it's a company car), as depreciation is written off on the company's P&L at the end of the year and can be written off to whatever figure you see fit (within reason). You can then sell it on cheap to yourself to avoid making a profit for the purposes of tax and AFAIK it's not actually fraud

maidhc

ninty9er wrote:

If I was your boss, Id buy in the most expensive place (assuming it's a company car), as depreciation is written off on the company's P&L at the end of the year and can be written off to whatever figure you see fit (within reason). You can then sell it on cheap to yourself to avoid making a profit for the purposes of tax and AFAIK it's not actually fraud

Ummm. Depreciation is not actually deductible. There are rules relating to capital allowances (12.5% straight line allowance over 8 years), but 12 at night is too late to talk about that. There is also a qualifiying limit on that for motor cars (23k IIRC) which hits expensive cars hard.

Selling a car to a director at an undervalue also raises various issues.

Be careful, get advice.

unkel

ninty9er wrote:

If I was your boss, Id buy in the most expensive place (assuming it's a company car), as depreciation is written off on the company's P&L

Yeah, the more you can depreciate an asset, the more profit the company makes. Not :eek:

unkel

You beat me to it, maidhc

GTFABM

Thanks to all for your comments. The car in question would be a TOTR 7 series in diesel, proable a 740Ld. Part of the reason for looking abroad is that we might be able to get a 750d or 760d.

If anyone out there has any experience of importing new or nearly new I would appreciate contact info on who you dealt with.

peasant

seenashow you mention nearly new ...

If the car is over 6 months old and has more than 6000 km's (or is it miles??) on the clock, you don't have to pay Irish VAT. If you can find such a vehicle in Germany for example (and pay the VAT there), that would be an instant saving of 5% (4% from next year when the German VAT gets raised from 16% to 17%)

Alun

peasant wrote:

seenashow you mention nearly new ...

If the car is over 6 months old and has more than 6000 km's (or is it miles??) on the clock, you don't have to pay Irish VAT. If you can find such a vehicle in Germany for example (and pay the VAT there), that would be an instant saving of 5% (4% from next year when the German VAT gets raised from 16% to 17%)

I thought it was going up by 3% to 19%, so that would make only a 2% saving ?

peasant

oops ...you're right Alun ...(I must have been living here for too long:D )