This is amazing (thread title amended to include Spain) but on my trips there I saw very little “touring” GA and probably never thought about this.
What are these import taxes above 1500kg? In the EU it should be just VAT.
What are these import taxes above 1500kg? In the EU it should be just VAT.
It’s a ‘special tax’ levied by the Autonomous Region where one resides. Applies to vehicles, boats and aircraft (>1550 kg MTOM, tax rate 12% where I live) either new or used. The rumor goes that the Cirrus rep succeeded in getting the authorities to agree to a MTOM limit just above the SR22 MTOM, but maybe that’s FUD.
Peter wrote:
What are these import taxes above 1500kg? In the EU it should be just VAT.
What countries routinely do, at least for land vehicles, is to not label it as an “import tax” per se (that would indeed be problematic at EU level), but make it “registration tax”. E.g. France has up to half the VAT-inclusive price or 50 000 EUR “registration tax” for land “person transport” vehicles, depending on gross weight and CO2 output.
This works well for land vehicles since the residence of the holder and the country of the registration are strongly tied, with some corner cases like company cars for cross-border employees. Less so for aircraft :)
aart wrote:
Applies to vehicles, boats and aircraft (>1550 kg MTOM, tax rate 12% where I live)
Let me guess, it applies only to aircraft > 1550 kg MTOM, boats longer than 7.5 m and land vehicles with an engine of more than 48 cm3 of cylinder volume or more than 7.2 kW? That’s the definition of “means of transport” in VAT law; Occam’s razor suggests that is the source of the cutoff value(s).
aart wrote:
The rumor goes that the Cirrus rep succeeded in getting the authorities to agree to a MTOM limit just above the SR22 MTOM, but maybe that’s FUD.
According to various sources on the Internet, the MTOM of a SR22 is 1633 kg so something in the story does not check out.
According to various sources on the Internet, the MTOM of a SR22 is 1633 kg something in the story does not check out.
But let’s not get sucked into these details 
aart wrote:
In 2001 it was less?
Yes, Wikipedia says this was increased by 200 lb early 2013 with the G5. Checks out :)
aart wrote:
I have at least never met someone who had a problem and had to re-register to Spanish reg.
I certainly do! The club I was a member of in Malaga initially had D-reg airplanes (C172s and C172RGs). At some point they were forced to re-register the planes on the EC register. I don’t know the tax implications and the whole episode was some 20+ years ago.
Was it a “club” closed to outsiders, or did it also do ab initio training?
There may be peripheral issues e.g. what many call a “club” is simply a “school”. People get very emotional about this distinction but it is an obvious fact that nobody can offer free training so no matter how you dress it up, if you train outsiders you are a flying school. This is true whether or not these outsiders are required to purchase a “club membership” for tax, insurance or other regulatory reasons. And AFAIK no country in Europe allows a school to operate foreign reg. I have heard of a few cases of an EU school operating another EU reg on a temporary basis but it may have been “around” for training its owner, which is permitted in most places.
It was a closed club, no training whatsoever involved.
Peter wrote:
And AFAIK no country in Europe allows a school to operate foreign reg.
I don’t see how any EASA country can prohibit use of any EASA-reg aircraft by a school.
I know for a fact that a C172 that my club sold in 2022 is now operated by a Portuguese school and still on SE-reg.
