Brexit Referendum Superthread

oscarBravo

Nate--IRL-- wrote: »

Doesn't Ireland get fines for this? IIRC the VRT vastly outweighs the fines imposed.

Nope.

I thought VRT was illegal under EU law?
That is not the case.

Member States are entitled to charge national taxes provided that there is no discrimination against imported goods in favour of indigenous goods.

VRT is a national tax in Ireland and does not contravene EU law in that the VRT payable on the registration of an imported vehicle is equal to the amount of residual VRT contained in a similar vehicle already in the State.

Fratton Fred

alastair wrote: »

The use of cars are subject to taxation. Same as tellys. Nothing impeding the free movement of goods in that.

A TV licence would equate to vehicle tax, which is fair enough.

Bringing a car in to a country involves a one off import tax, which should be (but for some bizarre reason isn't) against eu rules.

oscarBravo

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Bringing a car in to a country involves a one off import tax, which should be (but for some bizarre reason isn't) against eu rules.

The reason isn't bizarre, it's simple: the tax isn't discriminatory. VAT rates are higher in Denmark, and that's not against EU rules either.

alastair

Fratton Fred wrote: »

A TV licence would equate to vehicle tax, which is fair enough.

And neither have any bearing on freedom of movement of goods, same as VRT.

Fratton Fred

alastair wrote: »

And neither have any bearing on freedom of movement of goods, same as VRT.

Free movement of goods means free, does it not?

As in not subject to import tax.

Sam Russell

VRT is a tax on the importation of a car, refundable on export.

If you export the same car the other direction, then the same amount of VRT is refunded (less an administration fee), so it is simply a tax imposed to match the residual VRT in the vehicle if it had been imported new.

If the export did not get a refund, then it would be against the rules.

Fratton Fred

Sam Russell wrote: »

VRT is a tax on the importation of a car, refundable on export.

If you export the same car the other direction, then the same amount of VRT is refunded (less an administration fee), so it is simply a tax imposed to match the residual VRT in the vehicle if it had been imported new.

If the export did not get a refund, then it would be against the rules.

Then why, if I buy a bottle of wine in France, do I not have to pay a tax to reflect the duty on that bottle in the country I am bringing it in to?

If I buy a laptop off Amazon, I'm not expected to pay a fee to reflect the difference in VAT rates, so why do I on cars?

It just seems like a money spinning loophole the eu won't close because it generates lots of cash for member governments and it only affects private individuals. If it affected companies, it would soon be banned.

First Up

Fratton Fred wrote:

As in not subject to import tax.

They are not an import tax.

recedite

alastair wrote: »

The use of cars are subject to taxation. Same as tellys. Nothing impeding the free movement of goods in that.

This is the kind of bollox that annoys people. This is why people vote for the likes of Brexit and Trump; they get fed up with being fed contrived nonsense and they just crave some straight-talking common sense.

Suppose the UK said they would accept free movement of people. But conditional on imposing a new residency registration tax on all EU citizens coming in from the continent. It would be set at the same rate for all EU people imports.
As you say, there's nothing impeding the free movement of people in that

First Up

recedite wrote:

This is the kind of bollox that annoys people. This is why people vote for the likes of Brexit and Trump; they get fed up with being fed contrived nonsense and they just crave some straight-talking common sense.

I'd hope that people would have better reason for doing something that stupid but the fact is that the residents of EU countries pay the same charges on cars as anyone else. There are no import taxes.

Sam Russell

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Then why, if I buy a bottle of wine in France, do I not have to pay a tax to reflect the duty on that bottle in the country I am bringing it in to?

If I buy a laptop off Amazon, I'm not expected to pay a fee to reflect the difference in VAT rates, so why do I on cars?

It just seems like a money spinning loophole the eu won't close because it generates lots of cash for member governments and it only affects private individuals. If it affected companies, it would soon be banned.

You are. Look at the invoice and you are taxed at 23%, not 20%. Governments have autonomy on tax matters, as long as they are even handed on all members of the EU. All traders that have a turnover above a certain limit have to collect VAT for cross border sales.

If you import enough wine from the EU to make it worth their while, they will collect the tax. It is a personal allowance that allows you to buy a small quantity for personal use that permits non-tax importation.

joe40

This may have been addressed earlier in the thread, but does anyone know the proposals to deal with the many Northern Ireland residents that hold dual nationality as a result of the Good Friday agreement. How will citizens of a non-EU country in Northern Ireland be able to hold an EU passport. I presume this would not be allowed.Therefore will the British government have to tear up the Good Friday Agreement in relation to NI residents holding RoI passports.
I work in a catholic secondary school in the north and when organising a recent school trip the vast majority of pupils held a ROI passport.
Will this be a thing of the past post brexit

KingBrian2

joe40 wrote: »

This may have been addressed earlier in the thread, but does anyone know the proposals to deal with the many Northern Ireland residents that hold dual nationality as a result of the Good Friday agreement. How will citizens of a non-EU country in Northern Ireland be able to hold an EU passport. I presume this would not be allowed.Therefore will the British government have to tear up the Good Friday Agreement in relation to NI residents holding RoI passports.
I work in a catholic secondary school in the north and when organising a recent school trip the vast majority of pupils held a ROI passport.
Will this be a thing of the past post brexit

Nobody knows is the simple answer.

Nody

recedite wrote: »

Suppose the UK said they would accept free movement of people. But conditional on imposing a new residency registration tax on all EU citizens coming in from the continent. It would be set at the same rate for all EU people imports.
As you say, there's nothing impeding the free movement of people in that

Except it has to apply to nationals of UK as well; same way a tax can not only apply to imported cars but have to include locally produced cars as well. This is what stopped for example the German road tax; the German governments idea was to charge a road tax and then discount the national car tax for the same amount as a yearly tax certificate would cost. This was ruled as being against free movement because the tax did not hit everyone equally as it favored Germans over non German drivers on the road.

recedite

Nody wrote: »

This was ruled as being against free movement because the tax did not hit everyone equally as it favored Germans over non German drivers on the road.

By the same token, our high VRT favours the NI based driver in Donegal over the ROI registered driver. Hence lots of people there driving NI registered cars.

I can see a certain logic in your point, but it is so obscure and ambivalent, that mainly what I see is the basic inequality of how the citizens are treated in different euro states. Its not really a single market when some people have have access to cheaper cars, cheaper loans etc... simply because they live in one euro state and not another.

OK you can say there is nothing to stop you moving to the other country.
But (a) this is not the USA and we still have different languages and cultures in Europe (which is a good thing IMO) which are a natural barrier to free movement, though not insurmountable.

and (b) it is not necessarily a good thing for the unemployed youth of peripheral countries to flock to Germany. Far better to transport the advantages that Germans enjoy to the peripheral countries.

Jim2007

joe40 wrote: »

This may have been addressed earlier in the thread, but does anyone know the proposals to deal with the many Northern Ireland residents that hold dual nationality as a result of the Good Friday agreement. How will citizens of a non-EU country in Northern Ireland be able to hold an EU passport. I presume this would not be allowed.Therefore will the British government have to tear up the Good Friday Agreement in relation to NI residents holding RoI passports.
I work in a catholic secondary school in the north and when organising a recent school trip the vast majority of pupils held a ROI passport.
Will this be a thing of the past post brexit

A person from NI being a dual national is no different to any other EU citizen with dual nationality, the same as myself holding Swiss & Irish citizenship. The only restriction I have is that I cannot seek Swiss diplomatic services in Ireland nor Irish diplomatic services in Switzerland, in other countries I'm free to choose which embassy I seek services from. The same would apply to an NI resident holding dual nationality. So long as you meet the citizenship requirements of a given state that is where it ends.

oscarBravo

recedite wrote: »

This is the kind of bollox that annoys people. This is why people vote for the likes of Brexit and Trump; they get fed up with being fed contrived nonsense and they just crave some straight-talking common sense.

It's not contrived nonsense; it's national law. If you don't like the law, elect a government to change it. If people are voting to leave the EU because they're annoyed about national laws, they're missing the point in a pretty spectacular way.

recedite wrote: »

By the same token, our high VRT favours the NI based driver in Donegal over the ROI registered driver. Hence lots of people there driving NI registered cars.

If they're normally resident in Donegal but driving NI registered cars, they're breaking the law and evading tax.

Its not really a single market when some people have have access to cheaper cars, cheaper loans etc... simply because they live in one euro state and not another.

That boils down to an argument that there is no single market without uniform tax rates. If you want to argue for uniform tax rates, go ahead - but if you think allowing member states to set their own taxes means that the single market doesn't exist, you're just arguing against your perception of the single market, rather than the reality of it.

Jim2007

recedite wrote: »

Nody wrote: »

This was ruled as being against free movement because the tax did not hit everyone equally as it favored Germans over non German drivers on the road.

Far better to transport the advantages that Germans enjoy to the peripheral countries.

But that is one of the objectives of the EU - to improve the live of all citizens, one the UK does not get! It's a difficult objective to achieve, but that is where the structural funds, subsidies etc.... come into plan. In that sense the EU presides over probably the biggest wealth redistribution in the world.

Jim2007

recedite wrote: »

alastair wrote: »

The use of cars are subject to taxation. Same as tellys. Nothing impeding the free movement of goods in that.

This is the kind of bollox that annoys people. This is why people vote for the likes of Brexit and Trump; they get fed up with being fed contrived nonsense and they just crave some straight-talking common sense.

Suppose the UK said they would accept free movement of people. But conditional on imposing a new residency registration tax on all EU citizens coming in from the continent. It would be set at the same rate for all EU people imports.
As you say, there's nothing impeding the free movement of people in that

The people that voted for Brexit or Trump are not seeking straight-talking, they are seeking someone with the same views as themselves.
Your second point is exactly what the UK wanted to do and has noting to do FMOP! It is about treading all citizens of the EU equally - had the UK been willing to apply the same criteria to UK citizens seeking assistance, tax credits etc as they wanted to do to other EU citizens, then it would not be an issue. What you are suggesting would be like Kerry county council deciding they did not like people from Dublin and they introduced a new ordnance restricting their right to own property in Kerry. You can not treat citizens differently, it goes to the core of any community including the EU.

Fratton Fred

Jim2007 wrote: »

In that sense the EU presides over probably the biggest wealth redistribution in the world.

Taking money from the wealthy countries and giving it to the poorer ones?

Why on earth would the UK vote to leave such a great ideal?

recedite

Jim2007 wrote: »

but that is where the structural funds, subsidies etc.... come into plan. In that sense the EU presides over probably the biggest wealth redistribution in the world.

Structural funds are a good idea. But in the long term, peripheral countries don't want charity, they want jobs. Exports from the core countries, mainly Germany have boomed while also remaining competitive since the € was introduced. A neat trick made possible by having a common eurozone currency. The flip side of that is that peripheral countries have been unable to devalue and therefore boost their own industries. The result is that their workers are expected to migrate to Germany, to where the work is, even though they don't really want to.

Except the UK of course, where industries are now booming as a result of the drop in the £.

When I see the same car/van for sale in each euro country with the same € price tag, and when I see a branch of the European Investment Bank in each European town and city busily handing out loans created at the ECB in Frankfurt to small businesses and homeowners, at the exact same interest rate in each country, then I will know we all live in a single market.

ancapailldorcha

recedite wrote: »

Structural funds are a good idea. But in the long term, peripheral countries don't want charity, they want jobs. Exports from the core countries, mainly Germany have boomed while also remaining competitive since the € was introduced. A neat trick made possible by having a common eurozone currency. The flip side of that is that peripheral countries have been unable to devalue and therefore boost their own industries. The result is that their workers are expected to migrate to Germany, to where the work is, even though they don't really want to.

Infrastucture projects create jobs. They require logistics, workers, etc...

recedite wrote: »

Except the UK of course, where industries are now booming as a result of the drop in the £.

Source for this? The UK has a massive current account deficit meaning that it imports more than it exports. A weak pound will increase the cost of imports while a lack of exports means little benefit.

FrancieBrady

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Infrastucture projects create jobs. They require logistics, workers, etc...



Source for this? The UK has a massive current account deficit meaning that it imports more than it exports. A weak pound will increase the cost of imports while a lack of exports means little benefit.

This got missed in Trump shenanigans.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/nov/09/uk-trade-deficit-widens-september-exports-fall-pound-drop

Jim2007

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Jim2007 wrote: »

In that sense the EU presides over probably the biggest wealth redistribution in the world.

Taking money from the wealthy countries and giving it to the poorer ones?

Why on earth would the UK vote to leave such a great ideal?

And that is exactly what is missing in the US and the UK today - the sense of community and putting the community before oneself. It is all about me, what I want, what I can buy etc... You just have to listen to them, they don't care about that happens to their neighbours, their community, the country, the environment etc. as long as they are OK, that is all that matters....

Jim2007

recedite wrote: »

Except the UK of course, where industries are now booming as a result of the drop in the .

Probably a good idea to update your news sources if that is what you think. The UK has consistently produced negative trade balances for over 20 years and nothing in recent months suggests that that has changed. It is the only major EU economy to do so, even Italy manages to produce positive trade balances from time to time. When it comes to contract closing they are last but for Greece and Malta at 193 days!!!

Peregrinus

joe40 wrote: »

This may have been addressed earlier in the thread, but does anyone know the proposals to deal with the many Northern Ireland residents that hold dual nationality as a result of the Good Friday agreement. How will citizens of a non-EU country in Northern Ireland be able to hold an EU passport. I presume this would not be allowed.Therefore will the British government have to tear up the Good Friday Agreement in relation to NI residents holding RoI passports.
I work in a catholic secondary school in the north and when organising a recent school trip the vast majority of pupils held a ROI passport.
Will this be a thing of the past post brexit

No. There are already lots of nationals of EU member states (and therefore EU citizens) who live outside the EU. Post-Brexit there's no reason why someone in Northern Ireland (or Britain) can't continue to be an Irish citizen and, therefore, an EU citizen.

Peregrinus

Nody wrote: »

Coming back to the single market discussion and Liam Fox there's a leaked memo from his meeting in Dublin:
Details here but seriously if this is the senior leadership going in to negotiate the deal's understanding I almost pity the UK population; almost because they did vote for it after all but damn how stupid can you be...

Fox appears to live in a world of his own, if newspaper reports are to be believed. He simply filters out any suggestion that Brexit could be problematic for Britain in any way. He doesn't need to refute such suggestions because he starts from the assumption that they must be wrong; therefore, why bother examining them in detail? It only takes away from the time you can spend contemplating the wonderful opportunities that Brexit offers!

alastair

joe40 wrote: »

This may have been addressed earlier in the thread, but does anyone know the proposals to deal with the many Northern Ireland residents that hold dual nationality as a result of the Good Friday agreement. How will citizens of a non-EU country in Northern Ireland be able to hold an EU passport. I presume this would not be allowed.Therefore will the British government have to tear up the Good Friday Agreement in relation to NI residents holding RoI passports.
I work in a catholic secondary school in the north and when organising a recent school trip the vast majority of pupils held a ROI passport.
Will this be a thing of the past post brexit

It'll make no difference whatsoever. There are no shortage of dual passport holders around the world with EU passports, without any problem - and the same will be true of the UK post-Brexit.

Regarding the specific case of Irish passport holders in the UK - the GFA isn't the legislation that allows NI citizens to hold either Irish or UK passports (or both, if they so desire) in any case, it's the 1949 Ireland Act. Irish passport holders within the UK will continue to be treated the same as UK citizens, as they are legally not foreign. The EU status of either doesn't enter into it.

Charles Babbage

Fratton Fred wrote: »

As i would a TV licence.

It really bugs me that to use a second hand car bought abroad, you then have to pay an additional tax to bring it in to the state.

Only if you drive it in the road.

K-9

I think we are getting close to arguing we should have common tax rates and, real shock horror, common tax rules in the EU.

Do we seriously want to go down that road?