Am I missing the point......?Spanish tax

[mm1]

As I understand it only people operating without the correct documentation & or not paying the appropriate taxes in connection with their business are the only people affected.if this is so, why the outcry,it would appear they have had it good for many years,lesson learnt live by the law of the country & pay your taxes.

 

[Nick_H]

I think the problem is that the Spannish authorities interpret a law one way for many years, then suddenly adopt a different interpretation and go in with all guns blazing.

 

[mm1]

Not as I see it, the law has always been there,but the authorities have not pursued it with such vigour.

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

Yes you're missing the point. There is a personal tax in Spain which is paid by Spanish residents called matriculation tax which is levied on some assets like boats and planes. Last year the Spanish authorities attempted to apply this tax to non Spanish residents owning charter boats in Spain. There are thousands of boats owned by non residents in Spain and which are offered for charter. The charter industry is reckoned to be worth €300m pa in the Balearics alone. Their new position was based on the opinion that by operating a charter boat in Spain, the owner was operating a Spanish business and by using the boat for personal use, he was effectively making himself a Spanish resident for tax purposes and thus was obliged to pay matriculation tax. This situation was made more complex by the fact that for many years, foreign owned charter boats under 15m in length (actually measured at the waterline so that meant effectively any boat upto about 52ft long) were explicitly exempted from matriculation tax anyway. The Spanish authorities unilaterally decided that this exemption had never been applied correctly and therefore never existed.
The situation was made a whole lot worse by the Spanish authorities not giving any warning of their change in position and worse, applying the tax retrospectively all the way back to when the boat first entered Spain. No UK tax would be applied in this way. The first that some owners heard of the tax was when their boats were seized and not returned until the tax had been paid plus interest. In addition they also applied draconian fines for non payment of the tax.
This is not a case of some shady boat owners knowingly evading Spanish tax but a blatant tax grab by the Spanish authorities meticulously planned in order to catch as many unsuspecting owners as possible. In addition, the tax has been applied more rigorously in some areas of Spain than others with the Balearics being worst hit and, believe it or not, so far only applied to British and German owners. The upshot of this is that hundreds of owners like me have taken our boats and our tourist euros out of Spain; the crass stupidity of this action is that Spain will lose far more tax revenue on the money that foreign boat owners who have now left used to spend year on year in Spain than they would ever collect in matriculation tax.

PS just to make it 100% clear, matriculation tax is not being applied to foreign owned boats which are not offered for charter in Spain so, if you have a boat in Spain and you dont charter, you're safe at least for now. Who knows what they might do in the future as the Spanish economy dives further into the abyss

 

[mm1]

Thank you for a very clear & precise response ,it would appear to be very unfair.second lesson learnt never trust the authorities! Mm1.

 

[jfm]

MM1, in any civilised legal system you don't find the law just by reading the letter of the law. The law is really the law plus the behaviour of those that enforce it. Many laws are modified by public statements from the relevant authorities as to how they will apply it. Take a simple example of speeding in the UK. The motorway letter of the law is 70mph but the association of chief police officers have said publicly they will only prosecute you if you are over 79mph. So if they stopped you tomorrow at 73mph and prosecuted that would be grossly unfair, and in itself unlawful. In the UK there is legal principle of "legitimate expection" which means you have a legally enforceble right to have the prosecution for 73mph withdrawn

The same princioples apply in most other civilised and all other fair countries. As Deleted User explained above the spanish tax police just did a U turn on years of established practice without giving anyone any notice. And to compound it they applied draconian penalties. That is disgusting behaviour and the villians here are the Spanish tax authorities and not the boaters who had relied on long-established practice in how the law was applied. Changing the way the law is applied without telling anyone in advance can never be fair behaviour.

As Deleted User said they're also pretty stupid becuase they've turned away millions of boating tourist euros. So in addition to the boat-owning victims every Spanish average Joe has suffered becuase the tax take overall from boaters has fallen. That's a big deal in smaller sub economies like say Menorca. remember the post from Oceandrive a couple of months ago (he spends a lot of time there)? The marinas are half empty he said, you can easily get a berth, the restaurants are half empty, and the harbour master has now imposed a ban on anchoring in Mahon if there are empty marina berths, just to try to get some customers back into marinas. If you were a restaurant owner in Mahon right now you'd feel just as beaten up by the tax police as innocent boaters who have been assesed for matriculation tax. Just on this forum, Deleted User has abandoned Mallorca last year, Woodie 100 (Targa 47) abandoned Menorca last year, the guy renting my berth in Antibes is from manchester with a Pearl 55 and he has abandoned Mallorca this year becuase they threatened this tax. This loss of tax revenue is a true story - we're not making it up

 

[BlueSkyNick]

Not only that, but ...

also, those who choose to stay and take the hit on additional taxes, have to re-register the boat under the Spanish flag AND undergo Spanish assessments and qualifications as a skipper.

 

[lovezoo]

also, those who choose to stay and take the hit on additional taxes, have to re-register the boat under the Spanish flag AND undergo Spanish assessments and qualifications as a skipper.

I don't think it is necessarily the case that you have to get a Spanish qualification, if you already have the relevant UK qualification. As ever in Spain though it depends on who you ask - if they say no on Monday, come back on Tuesday and ask again...

 

[benjenbav]

in any civilised legal system you don't find the law just by reading the letter of the law. The law is really the law plus the behaviour of those that enforce it.

I think I'd like that on my tombstone - mebbe a nice gothic font...

 

[volvopaul]

Last week I was in North Majorca, it was very quiet, I was surprised as the weather was very good, hardly anyone around the marina in Alcudia mar and pollensa, infact you could have moored anywhere loads of space and whats more, many many berths for sale with the remainder of the lease on them.

I spoke to a couple of agents ref the mat tax and got various answers as to how its affected trade and what category I would come under with a less than 15m boat if kept for private use, and the same if chartered, id read up on the new laws and still got 2 different answers as to wether I was liable for tax, seems to me people dont really know what there talking about.

 

[DavidJ]

Another example of Spanish tax grab is in Empuriabrava where we have our boat. It's a huge canal system with lovely canal side homes with their own moorings outside.(envy envy!) The Spanish have decided that the canals are part of the sea and thus can't be owned so now the residents have to pay rent for the water space that they once owned and paid a lot of money for........hardly past tax avoidence!!

What's next, their gardens? because they are too close to the canal!!

 

[Steve Clayton]

......Just on this forum, Deleted User has abandoned Mallorca last year, Woodie 100 (Targa 47) abandoned Menorca last year, the guy renting my berth in Antibes is from manchester with a Pearl 55 and he has abandoned Mallorca this year becuase they threatened this tax. This loss of tax revenue is a true story - we're not making it up

We've departed Spain too:
www.seraph-sailing.com after 3-4 years very successful skipper chartering: why?

Matriculation tax looming
Being told we have to establish a Spanish SL company (we are UK co registered)
Movement of charter licencing from Alicante to Valencia with no clear defintions of EXACTLY what they would require - being advised that this could mean that we could not charter for more that 90 days in a given year!!
Very strong advice from our Spanish maritime historia advising us "you should consider departing Spanish waters"
and a few other things that I'm not prepared to say on open forum

VolvoPaul: your reference to foreign flagged boats in excess of 15metres is with respect to a different tax levy imposed by the Spanish; it's called wealth tax - and isn't related to the matriculation tax issue.

MNick - what did you buy SWMBO for her birthday today?

 

[Assassin]

JFM:

The driving legislation is nothing to do with interpretation, it is about the specific legislation and the Construction and Use Regulations which state a vehicle must have a speedometer which is within 10% accuracy. This is due to the fact that tyres on vehicles wear and lose an amount of their rolling radius, or in simple terms their diameter decreases as the tread wears down.

To ensure a conviction the authorities apply one of two rules generally, that is speed limit + 10% + 2MPH.

Or, speed limit + 12.5%

This allows them to be above the legal tolerance and guarantee a conviction for speeding.

Not related but informative.

 

[jfm]

JFM:

The driving legislation is nothing to do with interpretation, it is about the specific legislation and the Construction and Use Regulations which state a vehicle must have a speedometer which is within 10% accuracy. This is due to the fact that tyres on vehicles wear and lose an amount of their rolling radius, or in simple terms their diameter decreases as the tread wears down.

To ensure a conviction the authorities apply one of two rules generally, that is speed limit + 10% + 2MPH.

Or, speed limit + 12.5%

This allows them to be above the legal tolerance and guarantee a conviction for speeding.

Not related but informative.

Assassin you are quite wrong there. Sure, there is secondary legislation (Construction+Use Regs) to do with speedos but it requires not +/-10% but rather -0% and +10% (iirc). Accordingly, a CUR compliant speedo will always over estimate speed, and is therefore not the reason for the public statement by ass'n of Chief Police Offrs. Anyway it is an entirely separate point of law from the law surrounding "legitimate expectation", which says inter alia that if a public authority (in this case the Ass'n of chief police officrs) has said publicly how it will behave then it may not change its mind without giving advance notice. If it does, it can be corrected by the courts either in contract or via judicial review (which would apply depends on the exact circs). Whether it made its statement due to the technicalities of speedos (which in fact it didn't) is neither here not there. Al that matters is that it has made the statement, not the underlying reasons why it made it

Total thread drift, but the reducing diameter of a tyre as it wears does not reduce its circumference so far as the road interface is concerned. I mean, a tyre will travel the same distance along the road per rev when worn down to 1mm as it did when new. Reason is that the rubber tread surface compresses down to a constant dimension in the circumferential direction due to the inelasticity of the steel/fibre belting in the tyre carcass, just under the tread. (After I graduated in Mech Eng I worked for Dunlop in tyre design so picked up all sorts of totally useless tyre facts )

 

[Assassin]

Pure tosh.

The reason is nothing to do with "expectation", it is all to do with variables and the facts (which have been proven) that tyres rolling radius reductions decrease speed for a given input speed.

It was this which led to the testing and proving of this by a court which set a legal precedent, especially as it was undertaken on a number of vehicles, i.e. family saloon, large van, and an articulated lorry. This is what led to the tolerances now dictated by the Construction and Use Regulations, and defined their parameters.
Police forces nationally noted this anomoly as many drivers were exploiting this legislation when they were caught speeding and they all got off by simply quoting the previous precedent already set.

This set Police forces thinking and they studied the precedent and legislation; they concurred that a standard system should be set over and above the levels already set in statute. This is why they adopted one of two policies, those being the speed limit + 12.5% or the speed limit + 10% + 2MPH.
Being over and above the prescribed limits set in statute meant they could secure these convictions previously lost to tolerances.

Matters came to a head recently when under the previous Labour Government, they had a concerted attack on motorists, this specifically was the speeding zero tolerance policy. Anyone doing above the speed limit was automatically fined, many got off or reimbursed due to the C&U regs as they could not implement such schemes as they were illegal in law due to C&U, as well as breaching a legal precedent already set by a court after proving the speed difference in speed between vehicles equipped with new and old tyres.

I should know because i was the one who initiated it.

So you are trying to tell us that all the experts and the courts own testing was a fabrication, i think not.

Lets test your claim:

An average car tyre comes with 7mm of tread, the legal limit for tread depth is 1.6mm, solets assume a cautious owner who changes his tyres with 2mm tread depth left. This is a difference of 10mm less on the diameter which will affect the rolling radius by this amount, so of course any diameter difference of 10mm will affect the rolling Radius.

As for qualifications, i too am a degree qualified mechanical engineer, i hold two of them as well as a masters and a chartership, and many others.

 

[jfm]

Assassin
Thanks. I wasn't trying to play one-upmanship on Eng quals, and glad to hear you have plenty, so I can talk engineeringly to you.

Take a car wheel with a small diameter (so as to give your analysis the benefit of the doubt), say 185/70 x 14. Wheel diameter is 360mm and height of two sidewalls is 70% x 185 x 2. Total diameter 620. Your 10mm of tread wear is 1.6% so is not a justification for 10% tolerance

But a wheel doesn't perform that way anyway. Think about tread behaviour. As the tyre touches the road it bends to form a flat patch at the tyre-road interface, so something must change its dimension. As you know, you cannot go from arc of circle to flat without something flexing. Either the outer surface of the tread has to compress (in a circumferential direction), or the inner surface of the tread has to stretch. The latter doesn't happen because of the steel and fibres. So the tread compresses. Therefore, the distance covered by the worn-out tyre per revolution is almost exactly the same as the new tyre. It's way less than the theoretical 1.6%. You can make an analogy with a tank track. If you file metal off the tips of the tank track the distance travelled by ther tank per circuit of the track doesn't alter. A car tyre tread performs like a tank track in this regard, and not like a steel rimmed cart wheel. Get my drift?

I have no idea of the case you refer to but if some expert said in evidence, and the court accepted it, that the 10mm tread wear creates a proportionate speedo reading error, as if the wheel behaved like a steel rimmed cart wheel ie using the maths set out in your post, then yes I am saying the court and whoever gave the evidence got it wrong. Just cos someone said something in court and the judge accepted it doesn't make it right.

Anyway, back to your post. We might be at crossed purposes. You are taking issue with me over the reason why the police made their speeding statement - you said 'The reason is nothing to do with "expectation"'. In my post I wasn't concerned with the reason behind police's statement, and I wasn't saying that legitimate expectation is the reason for their statement. All I was noting in my post was the fact they have made their statement. I was merely saying their statement is an example of something that creates legitimate expectation. The reason they made their statement is neither here nor there so far as the existence of legitimate expectation is concerned.

 

[oldgit]

"Take a car wheel "

If an ordinary mortal can comment.

We install taximeters in cars of all flavours from Skoda Fabias to the Audi A8
In the dim and distant past all vehicles would have a cable running from a single wheel probably one of the front wheels ie Mercedes or more normally the wheel revolution info collected from cog in gearbox hence both rear wheels.
Quite recently the signal was picked up from a gearbox sensor and then into the speedo head via a piece of wire.
Today the signal is most probably from ALL of the ABS senders at once and the average fed in via a CANBUS system .
The interesting bit to all this is that you could quite easily have one very worn tyre,a couple of half worn and one brand new tyre on your car and the average signal to the speedo will virtually change not one jot.
It practice the difference in number of revolutions of wheel/tyre over a measured distance is virtually undectectable between new and knackered ,and believe me,cab drivers take this subject very very seriously indeed.
Lowering tyre pressures is the favorite ?

 

[thefatlady]

Assassin, I am with jfm on this, both the engineering and the legal point.

John
(also Chartered Mech Eng.)

 

[Renegade_Master]

Deleted User and others have so far referred to Mat Tax on charter boats. Lets not forget the matriculation tax applies to ANY person who stays in spain more the 183 days, they then deem you to be a resident for fiscal reasons and you must registar you cars boats and planes and pay the 12% mat tax, regarless of size.

Another reason why so many have left.

 

[Nautorius]

Deleted User and others have so far referred to Mat Tax on charter boats. Lets not forget the matriculation tax applies to ANY person who stays in spain more the 183 days, they then deem you to be a resident for fiscal reasons and you must registar you cars boats and planes and pay the 12% mat tax, regarless of size.

Another reason why so many have left.

...and another reason why I live in an overpriced box in Gibraltar and not a luxurious 6 bed (plus maid quarters) villa in Spain for the same price! Spannish tax is scary, they are in trouble and they are turning on themselves!

Cheers