Red Diesel

I believe that private aircraft - which are generally more expensive to run than even boats ;) - do not pay VAT on their fuel.


How about even handed treatment ?
 
Sorry Pete M typo finger trouble
Should have read" NOT affected Med boating" in the least. ......


Avgas is £1.40 + 20% VAT unless you are on a "training flight" ex UK and think there was some wheeze to claim some of it back ?????
 
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CLB said:
60/40 was around £1 when I last bought a month or so back. On the road at the moment it ranges from about 1.35 at supermarkets to £1.55 at motorway services. Based on experience with petrol, it is safe to presume we will pay a premium for waterside white desel, so I expect more like the motorway price. That is effectively a 50% increase. Maybe not much in the scheme of things, but it will curb people's habits. Ironically, the biggest losers will be our near continental friends as cross channel trips will become less viable. When fuel was fully rebated, I used to hop across for lunch. Now I only go across as part of a longer cruise. At £1.50, I may not go across at all.
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I agree with that . Some people will cut down on travelling especially if they are from Yorkshire.
 
Stain lasts for an incredible amount of time in a diesel tank and the fuel pipes and injectors as well, and in days gone they used to use different stains for different companies as well as individual company sites and as for the sight test, hum! things have moved on and while a visual check was done on cars and light commercials, now they swab the pipes on cars and light commercials and they carry test kits in their vans to do so. You can bet if they are testing boats they will have these test kits as they are only about 20p each and give a result in less than a minute and from memory it took a road car about 75-100,000 miles to get rid of the stain.
 
Calm down people. The machinery of the EC works very slowly, and infraction procedures are not designed to be rapid. Unless the Chancellor mentions this issue in the budget in a couple of weeks, it will remain some time away. All the original arguments for retaining red diesel remain, and the difference to Treasury will not change anybody's world.
 
rafiki_ said:
Calm down people. The machinery of the EC works very slowly, and infraction procedures are not designed to be rapid. Unless the Chancellor mentions this issue in the budget in a couple of weeks, it will remain some time away. All the original arguments for retaining red diesel remain, and the difference to Treasury will not change anybody's world.
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Unless of course the Belgians (and/or others) decide to take this as a trigger enforce their existing regulations.
 
rafiki_ said:
I don't think their position will change until something official comes out of the EC.
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I suspect you may be correct but there is no legal reason why they need to wait. However on past form there is every chance they will start enforcement without warning, I for one will continue to avoid Belgium because of this (at least on my boat, the Cunader my wife has booked us on to Bruges or thereabouts doesn't have these sort of worries)
 
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And of course we may clean our tanks, hoses and pipes but what about the marina tanks and pumps that have held red diesel, are they ever fully emptied and cleaned....
 
blan321 said:
And of course we may clean our tanks, hoses and pipes but what about the marina tanks and pumps that have held red diesel, are they ever fully emptied and cleaned....
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And what about those people (like me) who fill up in Guernsey. As far as I’m aware only red is available, unless they change their policy and go back to white.
 
I asked this question on the PBO site, but didn’t get a response so I will try again. If we have to use white diesel, will it still be possible to buy FAME free diesel?
 
No unless you buy MDO but that will make your engine unhappy even MGO is ULS and 7% Bio. Whatever diesel you buy it must meet the specifications as stated by the engine manufacturer
 
I noticed that when I lived in France that a Commercial River Pleasure Boat was filling up with the Oil Fired Central Heating fuel that many French houses use as in many areas there is no mains gas, and that Oil Fired Central Heating Fuel is also coloured Red. (Known as 35 sec. 28 sec is Kerosene/Paraffin)
 
I am a bit mixed up with all these. Sitting at the harbour cafe at Montenegro at the beginning of season, you can watch several Superyachts arriving from Italy/Greece/Croatia for the sole purpose of buying tax free fuel. In ten thousands of liters... They top up and return to where they have come from, mostly EU states. If they would be paying penalties, I assume that they wouldn't do this. So is it only Belgium who enforces penalties for using red diesel at their territories? As far as I know, the fuel that you bring in at your “standard fuel tank” is free from taxes when you enter to EU, as long you can prove legitimate purchase of that fuel. Am I missing something?
 
This is getting all rather too confusing for a normal mortal. I am just going to keep on doing what I had previously been doing until someone tells me not to
 
Eren said:
I am a bit mixed up with all these. Sitting at the harbour cafe at Montenegro at the beginning of season, you can watch several Superyachts arriving from Italy/Greece/Croatia for the sole purpose of buying tax free fuel. In ten thousands of liters... They top up and return to where they have come from, mostly EU states. If they would be paying penalties, I assume that they wouldn't do this. So is it only Belgium who enforces penalties for using red diesel at their territories? As far as I know, the fuel that you bring in at your “standard fuel tank” is free from taxes when you enter to EU, as long you can prove legitimate purchase of that fuel. Am I missing something?
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Are you sure that this tax free fuel is marked? If Montenegro does not have differential tax rates for different users, then they don't need to mark the tax free fuel. As has been said almost ad nausiam, the current EU action is about the sale of marked fuel to users that are not entitled to it, not about the tax levels paid.
 
maby said:
Are you sure that this tax free fuel is marked? If Montenegro does not have differential tax rates for different users, then they don't need to mark the tax free fuel. As has been said almost ad nausiam, the current EU action is about the sale of marked fuel to users that are not entitled to it, not about the tax levels paid.
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I think it is marked, because tax-free fuel is strictly pumped from a certain pump.

About the UK case, I think after the Brexit, UK and Montenegro should normally be at the same bucket, “non-EU”. However the status of UK is much more complicated now and not possible to guess how much UK will be “non-EU”.

Normally what the EU customs may clarify is the tax-free fuel amount that you can bring into EU. Just like allowing X liters of liqeur, X boxes of cigarettes, etc. At the moment, it is stated as “tax-free fuel can be as much as the standard fuel tank of the boat”. But as far as I see, applications differ from country to country and this is a gray area. I wouldn't want to be in a position to dicsuss these issues with the customs officer of the country that I am visiting. But one day it can happen to me as I almost always use tax-free fuel.
 
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