Greek Cruising Tax update from the CA

[Chris_Robb]

Do you think this will go into effect before May this year?

It will come into force 1 month from getting the bill is signed. How long to put through Parliament I don't know. But 1st may is feasable.
I will be watching but I hope my spies will tell me.
Previous legislation went through very rapidly as it done in a bill which covers a large number of articles... This is 66 of a couple on hundred items in the bill. It is passed by ministerial decree.
...

 

[De.windhoos]

It will come into force 1 month from getting the bill is signed. How long to put through Parliament I don't know. But 1st may is feasable.
I will be watching but I hope my spies will tell me.
Previous legislation went through very rapidly as it done in a bill which covers a large number of articles... This is 66 of a couple on hundred items in the bill. It is passed by ministerial decree.
...

Cool. Would save me a trip to the PP, the bank and back to the PP

 

[Chris_Robb]

Cool. Would save me a trip to the PP, the bank and back to the PP

Hi. Lets be VERY clear on this; why do you need to go to the bank for a DEKPA? Unless you are buying a new one.
Please do not think that this is anything to do with the E-TEPAI. That is alive and kicking.

 

[De.windhoos]

Hi. Lets be VERY clear on this; why do you need to go to the bank for a DEKPA? Unless you are buying a new one.
Please do not think that this is anything to do with the E-TEPAI. That is alive and kicking.

To pay the 15EU to get the DEKPA stamped for a new year? Or am I horribly confused again?

 

[Chris_Robb]

To pay the 15EU to get the DEKPA stamped for a new year? Or am I horribly confused again?

There is no charge for the annual stamp (attestation) of the DEKPA. €15 is the entry charge to Greece, €50 is for buying a new DEKPA. There are no other charges.

 

[MYSerenity]

Hi all,

My first post, hope it will be useful:

It appears that this law was published in the Greek Gazette on 03 March 2020, but in the law the relevant paragraph became 68 and not 66 as anticipated.

The reference link which will download the original document:

http://www.et.gr/idocs-nph/search/p...ijOWjTSktAzBHeMPnT3jP1Z4TzV2Dqf0M1VjdhEUzoLac

And a rather poor Google machine translation of the para 68, if it all looks Greek to you

Article 68 - Abolition of Vacation Ship (ΔΕ.Κ.Π.Α.)
1. Paragraph 1 of Article 10 of Law 4256/2014 (A΄ 92), is replaced as follows:
«1.α. Private pleasure boats, regardless of flag, must be equipped with a passenger status, which is kept up to date by the Master or the Governor, without requiring its consideration by the Port Authority. The status of passengers as well and any changes thereto shall be signed by him Captain or the Governor, who certifies the date and time of his signature. The situation passengers contains the details of paragraph 1 of article 5 of p.d. 23/1999 (A΄ 17), is always on board and is displayed at every request competent authorities.
b. In the case of private pleasure boats, regardless of flag, nationals work outside the EU or the E.O.X. The crew status shall be observed in accordance with the provisions of indent a) passenger status, separately. The crew status of the present also contains the date of disembarkation or disembarkation of the above employees on the ship, when it is marked in Greece. The crew status of this is presented, each from the Captain or the Governor to the Coast Guard Beginning of the first port of departure of the ship in the country from abroad and the last port of departure of abroad and is considered. The obligation to consider also exists in case of change of as employees. In this case the situation presented by the Master or Governor to visa to the Port Authority in the area under whose jurisdiction the ship is located.
c. The pleasure boats, regardless of flag, which have been professionally classified according to law of another country, must be provided with Updated status of passengers signed by the Master or the Governor, who certifies the date and time of signing of. The status of passengers contains its data paragraph 1 of article 5 of p.d. 23/1999, always on board, considered by the Port Authority during the process of obtaining a departure and declaration permit and shall be displayed at any request of the competent authorities. "
2. The validity of this article begins one (1) month since the publication of this law in the Journal of the Government, with the possibility of extending one (1)
additional month following a decision of the Minister of Shipping and Island Policy. From the entry into force of this article, any provision that regulates the same issues differently.

So this makes the law in force since 03 April 2020, having not found any notice by the Minister of Shipping and island Policy to that effect.

PS: Earlier I found a Facebook post by an Italian who claims he has been notified by Leros PP that the DEKPA has been repealed - the post was dated 30 March 2020, so I assumed it was fake...

 

[Chris_Robb]

Hi all,

My first post, hope it will be useful:

It appears that this law was published in the Greek Gazette on 03 March 2020, but in the law the relevant paragraph became 68 and not 66 as anticipated.

The reference link which will download the original document:

http://www.et.gr/idocs-nph/search/p...ijOWjTSktAzBHeMPnT3jP1Z4TzV2Dqf0M1VjdhEUzoLac

And a rather poor Google machine translation of the para 68, if it all looks Greek to you

Article 68 - Abolition of Vacation Ship (ΔΕ.Κ.Π.Α.)
1. Paragraph 1 of Article 10 of Law 4256/2014 (A΄ 92), is replaced as follows:
«1.α. Private pleasure boats, regardless of flag, must be equipped with a passenger status, which is kept up to date by the Master or the Governor, without requiring its consideration by the Port Authority. The status of passengers as well and any changes thereto shall be signed by him Captain or the Governor, who certifies the date and time of his signature. The situation passengers contains the details of paragraph 1 of article 5 of p.d. 23/1999 (A΄ 17), is always on board and is displayed at every request competent authorities.
b. In the case of private pleasure boats, regardless of flag, nationals work outside the EU or the E.O.X. The crew status shall be observed in accordance with the provisions of indent a) passenger status, separately. The crew status of the present also contains the date of disembarkation or disembarkation of the above employees on the ship, when it is marked in Greece. The crew status of this is presented, each from the Captain or the Governor to the Coast Guard Beginning of the first port of departure of the ship in the country from abroad and the last port of departure of abroad and is considered. The obligation to consider also exists in case of change of as employees. In this case the situation presented by the Master or Governor to visa to the Port Authority in the area under whose jurisdiction the ship is located.
c. The pleasure boats, regardless of flag, which have been professionally classified according to law of another country, must be provided with Updated status of passengers signed by the Master or the Governor, who certifies the date and time of signing of. The status of passengers contains its data paragraph 1 of article 5 of p.d. 23/1999, always on board, considered by the Port Authority during the process of obtaining a departure and declaration permit and shall be displayed at any request of the competent authorities. "
2. The validity of this article begins one (1) month since the publication of this law in the Journal of the Government, with the possibility of extending one (1)
additional month following a decision of the Minister of Shipping and Island Policy. From the entry into force of this article, any provision that regulates the same issues differently.

So this makes the law in force since 03 April 2020, having not found any notice by the Minister of Shipping and island Policy to that effect.

PS: Earlier I found a Facebook post by an Italian who claims he has been notified by Leros PP that the DEKPA has been repealed - the post was dated 30 March 2020, so I assumed it was fake...

Hi - you are correct, however it was Gazetted on March 19th and comes into force on April 19th, as the 1 months enactment dates stipulates. \it can be deferred for another month at ministerial discretion, however I don't see the circumstances of that happening. To make it happen, all they need to do is tell the Port Authorities......

NOTE: the requirement for a detailed up to date Crew /Passenger list is heavily emphasized by the new law, don't expect it not to be followed up.
So who is crew and who is a Passenger. - an unofficial note from the ministry of shipping is here:-

When you are in a private recreational boat and you are not an employee you are a passenger. So you and your wife or your friends are passengers, so you need to have a passenger list only.
The crew list is for private recreational boats that have employees (captain, sailor, housekeeping, cook etc). These employees should be written in the crew list and you, your wife or your friends in the passenger list.
The difference is that: crew is people on board that are employees. Passengers are people on board that are not employees.
Your and your on-board-friends skills might describe you as "crew" in English because of your specific skills to sail and guide a boat, but it is not your profession, you are not getting paid, so you are passengers because you are there for recreational reasons, even if you are the captain by skills.

 

[MYSerenity]

@ Chris_Robb

Yes, you are right of course - I was so exited that I found the new law promulgated - I was going through the archives day after day - so assumed that the date it was filed under was the date gazetted - and did not read the date under the heading - 19 Mar 2020

I do disagree with your interpretation of the terms "crew" and "passenger" though - it is indeed legally defined that passenger is any ticketed person, hence non-commercial operation consist of crew only. To clarify - licensed carrier operation has two types of persons on board - crew, who are not ticketed and hence cannot claim carrier(employer) compensation in case such claim can be raised, and "passengers", any person holding a ticket issued by the carrier and liable to compensation if claim is raised. Non-commercial operations, i.e. pleasure boats, can only have crew on board, as they are not entitled to carry passengers / issue tickets. A trivial cases are the fishing and racing boats, as they also consist of crew only, as they are not licensed to carry passengers.

TLDR - If it is too confusing, pleasure boats always have crew only as they are not licensed to carry passengers in any form (implicit or explicit), the commercial operations can have crew and/or passengers, as specified in their operating licence.

Bonus question - what about the charter companies - the skipper is the crew, obviously, but what about the people paying to have a ride in a crewed charter boat - are they crew or passengers?

Fair winds to all, wishing this lockdowns to be lifted as soon as possible so people, both commercial and pleasure, to have a nice season in the water.

 

[Chris_Robb]

@ Chris_Robb

Yes, you are right of course - I was so exited that I found the new law promulgated - I was going through the archives day after day - so assumed that the date it was filed under was the date gazetted - and did not read the date under the heading - 19 Mar 2020

I do disagree with your interpretation of the terms "crew" and "passenger" though - it is indeed legally defined that passenger is any ticketed person, hence non-commercial operation consist of crew only. To clarify - licensed carrier operation has two types of persons on board - crew, who are not ticketed and hence cannot claim carrier(employer) compensation in case such claim can be raised, and "passengers", any person holding a ticket issued by the carrier and liable to compensation if claim is raised. Non-commercial operations, i.e. pleasure boats, can only have crew on board, as they are not entitled to carry passengers / issue tickets. A trivial cases are the fishing and racing boats, as they also consist of crew only, as they are not licensed to carry passengers.

TLDR - If it is too confusing, pleasure boats always have crew only as they are not licensed to carry passengers in any form (implicit or explicit), the commercial operations can have crew and/or passengers, as specified in their operating licence.

Bonus question - what about the charter companies - the skipper is the crew, obviously, but what about the people paying to have a ride in a crewed charter boat - are they crew or passengers?

Fair winds to all, wishing this lockdowns to be lifted as soon as possible so people, both commercial and pleasure, to have a nice season in the water.

I suspect that this different will be largely academic as all on most boats will be all crew or all passengers. So it will be a matter of scoring out the heading "CREW/PASSENGER" - so leave both descriptions in and when asked - just score it out. As this was from the shipping Ministry, I wont exactly dismiss it, but it is not very important in the scheme of things.

Charter boats will know exactly what they need to do.....

 

[vasant]

Hi
Indeed i see another point. Who is skipper? In DEKPA it was by default the owner. And if it wasnt the owner it had to be published to the tax office to control illegal charter.
Now how it will be declared, particularly for private vessels. I assume the owner must be present in case not however its unclear how to handle.

 

[Tony Cross]

Hi - you are correct, however it was Gazetted on March 19th and comes into force on April 19th, as the 1 months enactment dates stipulates. \it can be deferred for another month at ministerial discretion, however I don't see the circumstances of that happening. To make it happen, all they need to do is tell the Port Authorities......

NOTE: the requirement for a detailed up to date Crew /Passenger list is heavily emphasized by the new law, don't expect it not to be followed up.
So who is crew and who is a Passenger. - an unofficial note from the ministry of shipping is here:-

When you are in a private recreational boat and you are not an employee you are a passenger. So you and your wife or your friends are passengers, so you need to have a passenger list only.
The crew list is for private recreational boats that have employees (captain, sailor, housekeeping, cook etc). These employees should be written in the crew list and you, your wife or your friends in the passenger list.
The difference is that: crew is people on board that are employees. Passengers are people on board that are not employees.
Your and your on-board-friends skills might describe you as "crew" in English because of your specific skills to sail and guide a boat, but it is not your profession, you are not getting paid, so you are passengers because you are there for recreational reasons, even if you are the captain by skills.

There is no distinction here between a private recreational boat that is a 70m motor cruiser with a skipper and a dozen (paid) crew who are clearly employees and a private recreational boat that is a 12m sailing yacht used by husband, wife and a couple of friends none of whom are employees. The advice from the MoS is clearly aimed at the former group whereas everyone on here is in the latter group.

In my experience the port police pretty much everywhere in Greece expect everyone on board a small private sailing yacht to be crew. If you start labelling some of them as passengers you risk raising all sorts of additional questions.

 

[Chris_Robb]

There is no distinction here between a private recreational boat that is a 70m motor cruiser with a skipper and a dozen (paid) crew who are clearly employees and a private recreational boat that is a 12m sailing yacht used by husband, wife and a couple of friends none of whom are employees. The advice from the MoS is clearly aimed at the former group whereas everyone on here is in the latter group.

In my experience the port police pretty much everywhere in Greece expect everyone on board a small private sailing yacht to be crew. If you start labelling some of them as passengers you risk raising all sorts of additional questions.

Tony, I cannot see that this will be a big issue. Your 70 foot ML I presume you will have the paid crew on a separate list, headed Crew, and the others on board, passengers on a separate list.

For most of us, just have a list headed
CREW/PASSENGER and have everyone on the one list. I really don't think the differenceen is any more than academic.

But you now must record joining and leaving date and the port and sign each entry. Use a boat stamp as well as the Greeks will be impressed?

 

[Tony Cross]

Tony, I cannot see that this will be a big issue. Your 70 foot ML I presume you will have the paid crew on a separate list, headed Crew, and the others on board, passengers on a separate list.

For most of us, just have a list headed
CREW/PASSENGER and have everyone on the one list. I really don't think the differenceen is any more than academic.

But you now must record joining and leaving date and the port and sign each entry. Use a boat stamp as well as the Greeks will be impressed?

Chris, you know as well as I that in general you only want to give the Greek port police the bare minimum of information they ask for. In the folder I used to take to the port police I only ever had the specific documents they would need to see for example. It is unwise IMO to list anyone on a private sailing yacht as a 'passenger' because it's unusual, it raises eyebrows and invites lots of other questions. If you simply list everyone as 'crew' the port police will be happy.

 

[Chris_Robb]

Chris, you know as well as I that in general you only want to give the Greek port police the bare minimum of information they ask for. In the folder I used to take to the port police I only ever had the specific documents they would need to see for example. It is unwise IMO to list anyone on a private sailing yacht as a 'passenger8' because it's unusual, it raises eyebrows and invites lots of other questions. If you simply list everyone as 'crew' the port police will be happy.

Tony, that's exactly what I was saying.: the form I set up is headed CREW/PASSENGER list. We thus for more of us avoid the question.
Agreed you show only the minimum, otherwise they will look at all you safety certs and really take you apart.
But the crew list is required by law to be detailed with joining leaving dates and the port AND signed on each entry by the skipper.

More worrying is a new law slipped in to the DEKPA changes where ALL non EU flagged yachts VAT paid or otherwise, will be required to report at each and every port they go into and report before they leave.
All yachts of all flags will have to check in on arrival in Greece And on exit.

This takes us back to the bad old days pre 2014.

I am investigating the facts at the moment but we will need to push back hard against this. For a start it will overwhelm port police or customs. I can see that we will need to have a perfect compliance campaign, which would overcome the port police's sanity.........

I am working on it, though it is particularly difficult at the moment with Greece again heading for real financial difficulty. Every one it occupied elsewhere

 

[Mr Cassandra]

Yes, busy smoking and drinking coffee

 

[vasant]

Hi
Indeed i see another point. Who is skipper? In DEKPA it was by default the owner. And if it wasnt the owner it had to be published to the tax office to control illegal charter.
Now how it will be declared, particularly for private vessels. I assume the owner must be present in case not however its unclear how to handle.

Chris was this point addressed at all? The law states also something about a rew list and logbook. Is there someting specific ?

 

[MYSerenity]

Hi
Indeed i see another point. Who is skipper? In DEKPA it was by default the owner. And if it wasnt the owner it had to be published to the tax office to control illegal charter.
Now how it will be declared, particularly for private vessels. I assume the owner must be present in case not however its unclear how to handle.

IMHO.

The skipper is always a physical person, whereby the owner is always a juridical person.

The person in control of the vessel is the "skipper".

The person or the company who owns the vessel is the "owner".

The skipper can also be the owner, or the skipper and the owner can be two different persons.

If the skipper is not the owner, he/she must have a letter from the owner authorising him to be the skipper of the vessel.

The insurance policy sorts this out nicely: The comprehensive insurance policy is issued for the benefit of the owner and lists the hull value of the vessel in question. The third-party-insurance policy (or section) provides cover for the skipper only, there is no hull value specified and the owner is irrelevant.

Hence, if you are owner and skipper at the same time, it is easy - all the documents will refer to the same person in two different roles. Otherwise, the skipper must be holding a letter from the owner - person or the company - authorising him to be the skipper.

 

[sailaboutvic]

IMHO.

The skipper is always a physical person, whereby the owner is always a juridical person.

The person in control of the vessel is the "skipper".

The person or the company who owns the vessel is the "owner".

The skipper can also be the owner, or the skipper and the owner can be two different persons.

If the skipper is not the owner, he/she must have a letter from the owner authorising him to be the skipper of the vessel.

The insurance policy sorts this out nicely: The comprehensive insurance policy is issued for the benefit of the owner and lists the hull value of the vessel in question. The third-party-insurance policy (or section) provides cover for the skipper only, there is no hull value specified and the owner is irrelevant.

Hence, if you are owner and skipper at the same time, it is easy - all the documents will refer to the same person in two different roles. Otherwise, the skipper must be holding a letter from the owner - person or the company - authorising him to be the skipper.

Is this a riddle ? if so I'm still trying to get my head around it .
For near most of us here the skipper and the owner is the same .
What ever way , I wouldn't worry about it if you had planning to sail in Greece this year.

 

[Chris_Robb]

Chris was this point addressed at all? The law states also something about a rew list and logbook. Is there someting specific ?

The person using the vessel if more than just the owner was marked in the DEKPA as USER. You could have several, and to get them added you needed a passport and a visit to Port Police.

Since the scrapping of the DEKPA there is now no where to formal record this. I have asked them numerous times and they came back eventually saying that on the E-TEPAI, you should edit the application name to the user and print it off. Unfortunately, Once an application has been paid, you cannot edit it. I have forcibly pointed out this stupidity, but can get no reply. I have clearly talked about our common aim of stamping out Illegal charter, and we want to make the job of Port Police to enforce the rules easier. It obviously above their pay grade......

I would now use a letter from the owner, a good few boat stamps on it to grace it - how they love stamps!

 

[MYSerenity]

Is this a riddle ? if so I'm still trying to get my head around it .
For near most of us here the skipper and the owner is the same .
What ever way , I wouldn't worry about it if you had planning to sail in Greece this year.

I'm sorry, the it was 34 degrees today at Lefkas, so things slow down and go cryptic, for the people up North...

I'm also the owner/skipper at the same time - which is the most trivial case when the boat is used for recreational purposes.

The other case is the small fishing boat, operated by the owner/skipper.

In both cases the skipper/owner may or may not have some crew on board, irrespectively if they are family or unrelated, but crew nevertheless and definetly not passengers.

Alternative to this would be the commercial use of a vessel, where the owner authorises a skipper to operate his/hers vessel for commercial purpose under commercial license - charter, passenger, ferry, etc - then the owner will comply with the license conditions - in a charter business it will be the skipper (dully authorised by the owner to be a skipper on the vessel) plus crew but no passengers.

The elephant in the room is the illegal cabotage - that is when a foreign skipper operates a boat commercially in territorial waters different to the boat's flag - like chartering a boat privately from the owner and sailing it under pretext of private leisure non-commercial operation - then it is up to that skipper to define that operation, but whatever he says will be illegal anyway - so anything goes, really...

There are few of these here at Lefkas, mostly SSR registered boats, driven by non-owner skippers - this year it will be quite different though, as UK boats with UK skipper will get a TL, so easy on everyone with regards to who is who and what they do.