VAT Question!...

[MapisM]

I definitely get your drift J, and in fact I always recognised (as did most other forumites, undoubtedly) that your contribution on such a tricky topic has been outstanding - and I have not read the MBY article yet! ...otoh, I just couldn't resist to throw in a sort of joke, as the smiley was meant to underline...
But jokes aside, I wish I always had the same quality standards of your posts also on some fiscal opinions from supposedly top level consultants, for which I had to pay in my past job some pretty scary invoices!

 

[Tranona]

Yes, it is a grey area. Not sure MCA would ever have grounds for any kind of prosecution. After all there is nothing to stop you crossing an "ocean" in a Category D boat, as indeed many people have.

The body responsible for policing CE marks is Trading Standards and the offence is "placing on the market" so is clearly aimed at traders rather than individuals. If you import a boat without a CE mark, there is nothing as far as I know to stop you from using it. The offence arises if you sell it to somebody else, ie place it on the market.

As with other potential offences in these scenarios it would be interesting to find out if there has ever been a successful prosecution of an individual as opposed to a trader.