Dublin Luxury Car Owners Try to Avoid Paying Taxes
The Sunday Business Post in Ireland reports on a neat little scheme by rich car owners to avoid paying the dreaded value-added tax (VAT). The car owners have been using a scam known as aging. The way it works is that it makes use of a rule that exempts people from paying tax on an imported car if it has more than 6,000 kilometers on it. To avoid the tax, owners import the car from Britain and add mileage onto it and declare it as a used car. Customs is seeking to crack down on millionaire motorists bringing new luxury cars into the country who are not paying the tax. The end result is that customs in Dublin now holds six Aston Martins, Maseratis, a Ferrari Mararnello and quite a few Hummers and Porsches. A nice collection indeed. The customs officials are finding that the car owners in question are able to pay the tax but were seeking to get out of paying the tax. They have already collected over 1.2 million euros in fees and have found that it was a much bigger problem than expected. The sting operation is breaking open a whole ring of car dealers and garages. Bottom line, no matter how you try to avoid it, the only sure thing in life is death and taxes.
