60 litres is a pretty small uplift – perhaps affecting mostly ultralights.
No necessarily. Imagine a local flight followed by a longer one. You might want the tanks topped off before starting on the longer one.
a small uplift fee of £50
And herein lies the problem. A complete break from reality.
60 liters is a pretty normal replenishment for a Robin or diesel DA40 (about 100 liters usable).
From what I understand :
Well well, good bye GA in deauville 
Cheaper to pour a couple of litres on the ground.
Along that line, a colleague of mine whose EU-business has an AirBP card, finds that the BP fuel supply out of his EU country (but still within Schengen) is billed by BP companies local to the supply , rather than the BP company local to his business. As a result he gets billed VAT in foreign countries, over which VAT he has to tax again VAT on his customers (ie local VAT on foreign VAT) . This is clearly against EU regulation given that the aircraft and business are based outside the country of supply, and given that it is clearly an international supply (international flight by a foreign operator flying the fuel out of the country of supply).
However, typical practical rules are such that when you are billed fuel , unless you are an international commercial aircraft operator with an AOC, you pay VAT.
In the UK there is a relatively simple tax scheme where you can recover fuel taxes (from Customs and Excise I think) when you are flying internationally. I am not aware of such a scheme in France, Germany or elsewhere. Is there one?
For an individual private operator paying foreign VAT is normal and not a problem, he is not expected to account for his fuel bills anyway. For a business it is a different matter.
Absense such recovery scheme, the easy solution is the local BP company billing international supplies ( rather than having them billed by each international BP company) so tax is dealt with locally.
However BP are refusing, even though they are happy to get the cash locally for their international bills & supplies.
So what do you guys find in terms of :
a) Which BP company bills your international fuel supplies?
b) Is there a fuel tax recovery scheme in your country for international flights so you can mitigate BP’s billing policy?
60 litres is a perfectly reasonable uplift, but perhaps if a retailer is only interested in high-end business they might consider it such small beer that they add an additional charge for getting out of bed.
In the TB10 my average flight is probably 1.5 hours and I like to launch for a flight like that with 3 hours fuel on board. Indeed if 4-up then it is probably close to the max I can carry. 3 hours fuel is 120 litres, and if all goes to plan (i.e. we burn half of it) then I will probably want to uplift 60 litres for the return flight.
The Vagabond only holds 45 litres. :-)
In any case I don’t do fuel cards or other vendor-specific payment methods – whether for aviation fuel or anything else in life. If you won’t take my credit card then I’ll go elsewhere and these systems only persist because consumers let them.
Antonio wrote:
Along that line, a colleague of mine whose EU-business has an AirBP card, (…) gets billed VAT in foreign countries, (…). This is clearly against EU regulation given that the aircraft and business are based outside the country of supply, and given that it is clearly an international supply (international flight by a foreign operator flying the fuel out of the country of supply).
No, it is not against EU regulation, it is mandated by them. Your colleague’s business buys goods (fuel) in the “local” countries, that is a local supply, just like buying oranges in the supermarket. Only purchase of goods that are transported to the (VAT taxable) buyer’s country by or on behalf of the seller or the buyer are subject to the “reverse VAT charge” and lead to the seller’s country VAT not being charged.
However, your colleague’s business can reclaim that VAT, insofar as the paid VAT is in the furtherance of a VAT-taxable business (that is, under exactly the same conditions that it can reclaim the locally paid VAT on purchases made in its own country):
There is a central EU electronic system for that, which the business has access to through the system set up by their country’s VAT tax office. https://pfi.public.lu/fr/professionnel/tva/etva/vatrefund/portals.html contains links to the per-country information on the system setup by the national VAT tax office for that purpose. See also the first section of https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/business/vat/eu-vat-rules-topic/vat-refunds_en#section_1, specifically the subsection “EU country specific information”.
Antonio wrote:
As a result he gets billed VAT in foreign countries, over which VAT he has to tax again VAT on his customers (ie local VAT on foreign VAT)
No, that is only because your colleague’s company is not well-informed enough to introduce a VAT reclaim request, or because they made the business decision that it is too much of a hassle for the money they would get back.
Jujupilote wrote:
60 liters is a pretty normal replenishment for a Robin or diesel DA40 (about 100 liters usable).GA_Pete wrote:
Cheaper to pour a couple of litres on the ground.
A standard Aeroclub 160hp Robin you calculate ~30Ltrs/hr with 100ltrs = 3hrs 15mins.
2 hrs to 2 1/2 hrs is a nice VFR flight time – you refuel while your other half does the coffee & comfort break, warm fuzzy fuel margin.
2hrs = 60Ltrs, but often you get 27-28Ltrs/hr in reality, it all aids the warm fuzzy fuel margin should there be any issue.
I guess GA Pilots will have to be careful where they fuel… BPs loss will be Total’s gain.
(And yes, I can see some letting a couple of litres pish out to save 40Euros…)
Regards, SD..
Peter wrote:
60 litres is a pretty small uplift – perhaps affecting mostly ultralights.
It’s a purchase that I typically make every couple of weeks, equivalent to two hours of local flying behind an O-320.
That amount costs me from $55 USD self-serve at the cheapest place locally to $71 for the truck to come to my hangar, in either case billed to any credit card.
So the BP fee is equal to what Silvaire pays, total.
