100% of Sunseeker sales go abroad!

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stillwaters

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According to Sunseeker's MD,Stewart McIntyre,in an interview in last sunday's Wail,"One hundred per cent of sales go abroad - even British purchasers buy offshore for tax reasons."
http://m.dailymail.co.uk/money/news/article-2126559/THE-INTERVIEW-Sunseeker-

Historically,of course,all manner of tax avoidance has gone on and,as a result,there are still a number of unpaid vat boats owned by EU residents out there but,with the ever-tightening screw of enforcement against EU citizens,can the figure of 100% of 200 boats per year produced,of which some at least will be British or other EU owned,be correct? And,if so,can somebody please explain how this works?
 
stillwaters said:
According to Sunseeker's MD,Stewart McIntyre,in an interview in last sunday's Wail,"One hundred per cent of sales go abroad - even British purchasers buy offshore for tax reasons."
http://m.dailymail.co.uk/money/news/article-2126559/THE-INTERVIEW-Sunseeker-

Historically,of course,all manner of tax avoidance has gone on and,as a result,there are still a number of unpaid vat boats owned by EU residents out there but,with the ever-tightening screw of enforcement against EU citizens,can the figure of 100% of 200 boats per year produced,of which some at least will be British or other EU owned,be correct? And,if so,can somebody please explain how this works?
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A couple of years ago at SIBS, I noticed that Sunseeker had a Russian speaking Sales Guy, who was being kept very busy. Never mind the UK; perhaps none of them end up in the EU any more - at least not for more than 90 days? ;)

Just been struck by another thought - perhaps they also have a Mandarin-speaking bod? :)
 
stillwaters said:
According to Sunseeker's MD,Stewart McIntyre,in an interview in last sunday's Wail,"One hundred per cent of sales go abroad - even British purchasers buy offshore for tax reasons."
http://m.dailymail.co.uk/money/news/article-2126559/THE-INTERVIEW-Sunseeker-

Historically,of course,all manner of tax avoidance has gone on and,as a result,there are still a number of unpaid vat boats owned by EU residents out there but,with the ever-tightening screw of enforcement against EU citizens,can the figure of 100% of 200 boats per year produced,of which some at least will be British or other EU owned,be correct? And,if so,can somebody please explain how this works?
Click to expand...

If correctly reported, it was quite a hamfisted comment by SMcI. The main reason brits buy nice boats to keep offshore is to get nice boating and sunshine. Nothing to do with tax. There are loads of boaters, me included, who pay 53% UK income tax on every penny they earn and buy a boat using the other 47%, with no offset at all from any kind of "losses" on the boat or any other schemes to reduce UK income tax. The choice of location of the boat is then based just on cruising grounds and weather. But of course that doesn't sell papers so Daily Mail doesn't report it...
 
jfm said:
If correctly reported, it was quite a hamfisted comment by SMcI. The main reason brits buy nice boats to keep offshore is to get nice boating and sunshine. Nothing to do with tax. There are loads of boaters, me included, who pay 53% UK income tax on every penny they earn and buy a boat using the other 47%, with no offset at all from any kind of "losses" on the boat or any other schemes to reduce UK income tax. The choice of location of the boat is then based just on cruising grounds and weather. But of course that doesn't sell papers so Daily Mail doesn't report it...
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I'm wondering if any Sunseeker buyers would care to enlighten us or,maybe even Stewart McIntyre himself might either repudiate this report or,better still,let us in on it.

BTW,with a maximum tax rate of 50% how is 53% achievable (or should that be sufferable?)?
 
stillwaters said:
BTW,with a maximum tax rate of 50% how is 53% achievable (or should that be sufferable?)?
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There is a bit of NI on top of the 50% tax, plus in any business you have a few essential expenses that are disallowable for tax so pushing your rate up (ie the rate of cash tax you pay as % of the cash profit you make)
 
stillwaters; said:
BTW,with a maximum tax rate of 50% how is 53% achievable (or should that be sufferable?)?
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Well arguably it's about 61.5%, when you include employers NI, which is a tax on your income, paid by your employer to HMRC before you ever see it, just the same as the other two income taxes if you're on PAYE.
 
Did anyone else notice that in the Sealine T60 used boat review in the latest MBY that all four of the T60s referenced for sale were at UK marinas and marked 'Tax not Paid'. How is that possible?

Edit - thinking about this, I suppose they have all been bought by companies on the pretext of being for a charter business.....
 
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jfm said:
There is a bit of NI on top of the 50% tax, plus in any business you have a few essential expenses that are disallowable for tax so pushing your rate up (ie the rate of cash tax you pay as % of the cash profit you make)
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Yes of course,I'm sure we all understand the theory,however,are there really loads of people who don't have even slightly creative accountants capable of quite legally mitigating at least some of their tax liability?
Mind you,most of my experience has taught me that theory and reality are often not the same thing,hence my initial interest in this article,I suppose.
 
stillwaters said:
Yes of course,I'm sure we all understand the theory,however,are there really loads of people who don't have even slightly creative accountants capable of quite legally mitigating at least some of their tax liability? .
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You have been reading too many daily mail style stories :). Sure there are people who try to cut their tax liability with schemes such as the film production partnerships and so on, but they are in a minority and many regret it. There are some thousands of folks in the City earning over £ a bar pa, and several thousand earning over half a bar, who just pay the 53%. All this stuff you read in the paper about everybody hiring accountants who can reduce that tax is just plain wrong.
 
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jfm said:
You have been reading too many daily mail style stories :). Sure there are people who try to cut their tax liability with schemes such as the film production partnerships and so on, but they are in a minority and many regret it. There are some thousands of folks in the City earning over £ a bar pa, and several thousand earning over half a bar, who just pay the 53%. All this stuff you read in the paper about everybody hiring accountants who can reduce that tax is just plain wrong.
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Is he wrong as well? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17661011

I know of 2 companies that sell big boats that as a unofficial service offer advice on UK VAT mitigation, if I was buying a large £2million + boat I would look to avoid 20% VAT, there should be a reduction on VAT as the price increases, that way HMRC would get a small part of something rather than nowt of a lot.
 
It was / is always widely reported that Sunseeker export 99% of what they sell ...perhaps the quick thinking Daily Mail journo simply rounded up their figures ....;)
 
jfm said:
You have been reading too many daily mail style stories :). Sure there are people who try to cut their tax liability with schemes such as the film production partnerships and so on, but they are in a minority and many regret it. There are some thousands of folks in the City earning over £ a bar pa, and several thousand earning over half a bar, who just pay the 53%. All this stuff you read in the paper about everybody hiring accountants who can reduce that tax is just plain wrong.
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Though this has nothing to do with the original subject,as I don't read it anyway the Daily Wail etc. is irrelevant and my queery had nothing to do with their apparent claims of high earners reducing tax to 10%. I personally just don't happen to know anyone who is paying over 50% gross tax,of course that maybe because the very high-earners that I know all own their own businesses and are not employees and this will have a bearing on it. However,if you say there are some,I don't doubt you.
 
RichardShead said:
It was / is always widely reported that Sunseeker export 99% of what they sell ...perhaps the quick thinking Daily Mail journo simply rounded up their figures ....;)
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Thanks for your clarification.
The report also claims that they produce 200 boats a year,so can we assume that only 1%,or 2 boats,aren't exported.......really? But this still doesn't explain the quote "even British purchasers buy offshore for tax reasons".
Er.....not sure if it's any clearer,after all.
 
SteveE said:
Is he wrong as well? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17661011.
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Yup. If he had taken a properly random sample of say folks with £1m+ in gross income pa in this country the tax rate would have been way higher than 10%. Or if you added up all returns in that category, I mean all 13,000 UK tax returns for people >£1m income, excluding non doms, the average tax rate would be waaay higher than 10%

But he didn't. That report compiled by HMRC is a collection of tax returns of those people who have claimed a lot of tax relief. It is not a random sample. That fact has hardly been reported by most of the press, though Accountancy Age got it right in their 4th para Now, if you take such a specifically targetted sample then of course you are going to see tax avoidance, perhaps some of it not fair. Just as, if you take a sample of people in prison you'll find most are criminals, Sherlock.

But it is completely wrong to tar all the other 13,000 £mill-a-year earners with the same brush, many of whom just pay the 53% or so and get on with it.

T'other daft thing is, they wrote "HMRC found the main methods used by people to reduce their bills was writing off business losses, offsetting the cost of business mortgages and borrowing on buy-to-let properties - all against their income tax bills. Others took advantage of tax relief on charitable donations" All of those thing are perfectly legitimate tax deductions. If the country doesn't think they should be then let parliament amend the law, but to accuse someone of bad behaviour becuase he took tax relief for a donation to charity is just outrageous and is the sort of attitude that will tip a few rich over that line and send them to Monaco or wherever.

Anyway this is massive thread drift i suppose and I'm happy to let it go and I do realise lots of people will disagree with me :)
 
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