Nice. So if you take out Germany, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, Romania, Poland, Ireland and Bulgaria then we are indeed a significant proportion of foreign home purchasers in Spain
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[News] Spain plans 100% tax on non-EU owned homes
- Thread starter Guinness Boy
- Start date
Without wishing to repeat the Brexit thread - ***cough*** VAT.
- Thread starter
- #83
Is VAT the same as a 100% tax on homes bought by non EU residents then? Not sure even the Brussels imagined by Farage would have been able to prevent that
?And while in the VAT directive all the UK had to do to raise additional tax is to choose another indirect tax instead and do some basic maths.
AstroSloth
Well-known member
- Dec 29, 2020
- 1,537
Australia would be an option.
- Jul 10, 2003
- 28,149
The people I know who have homes in Spain also voted Remain as did I, and indeed yourself. But I have a bit of a suspicion that you, me and our associates may be a self selecting group who understood fully what Brexit meant and the implications and weren't naively taken in by Farage and Johnson
…..if you meet all the requirements
AstroSloth
Well-known member
- Dec 29, 2020
- 1,537
All UK citizens can apply for and use a GHIC (Global Health Insurance Card) for travelling in the EU, Australia and New Zealand anyway.
- Jul 10, 2003
- 28,149
That's a nasty cough you have there.
Well that went well didn't it
Deportivo Seagull
I should coco
Christ where have you been hiding?
dsr-burnley
Well-known member
- Aug 15, 2014
- 2,732
I'm pretty sure the reason this tax is being proposed for non-EU purchasers is because they cannot apply it to EU residents. It doesn't fit in with the freedom of movement provisions.
It's the same general thinking as why Scotland couldn't charge EU residents for university students - they aren't allowed to favour their own residents over other EU residents.
The people I know who have homes in Spain also voted Remain as did I, and indeed yourself. But I have a bit of a suspicion that you, me and our associates may be a self selecting group who understood fully what Brexit meant and the implications and weren't naively taken in by Farage and Johnson
I based my vote on an obscure side issue called the economy
.An illustration of the stupidity/madness, now. I recently bought bike accessories from the EU, the kind recommendation of a nsc'er. This one small item had to be three separate orders, at a greater cost from two EU suppliers. Because when I tried to buy it as one at a brilliant low price, at the very final pay stage, various EU retailers refused to ship to the UK. But they literally would to anywhere else on the continent including EFTA. [You cannot buy it in the UK].
Not an irrelevant anecdote. Because it illustrates unnecessary price inflation and how going the other way life for UK exporters worsened to a huge marketplace just 20 miles away.
That would be correct, it would be illegal under EU law/courts.
I drilled into the figures a bit.
About 130,000 Homes sold to Foreigners a year, as per article, 27,000 of those to Non-EU. So if the UK are buying 10% of the total that's 13,000 or 50% of NON-EU purchases.
I suspect this policy will just make Holiday Homes slightly cheaper for rich Germans/French etc to eagerly take up the slack.
There are about 600,000 property sales in Spain a year, can't see how this policy will be making anymore standard housing stock available to the average Spanish family. Seems to be more about political points scoring then any kind of solution to a housing crises.
Quite possible and at least equally self-inflicted. How on Earth would anyone have known?
The VAT EU law is a red herring in my opinion. There’s a 15% minimum with an options for 5%, less than 5% and 0. It’s a pick and mix, if a country can’t work within this then VAT would be the least of my worries. The trade-off it protects each country in the trading block from being undercut.Is VAT the same as a 100% tax on homes bought by non EU residents then? Not sure even the Brussels imagined by Farage would have been able to prevent that
And while in the VAT directive all the UK had to do to raise additional tax is to choose another indirect tax instead and do some basic maths.
Dave the OAP
Well-known member
Don’t Germans have to pay a “ 2nd home” tax if they buy another house outside Germany?
My mate has put his villa up for sale in Spain last week due to lots of new “taxes” being levied on non eu residents. He had a local tax levied of €400 last week which he thinks is one of a few the local government taxes they are bringing in to discourage holiday homes as they have the same lack of affordable houses for locals. ( his is north of valencia)
Germany introduced exit taxation, due to wealthy individuals and companies moving to tax havens such as Switzerland, Luxembourg.
SkirlieWirlie
Well-known member
- Jan 6, 2024
- 261
A. Technically Brexit was 5 years ago, not 8
B. You do realise Brexit wasn’t just a big one off event then everything went back to normal, right?
It’s exactly the reason.
Regarding your latter point..conversely, EU membership allowed Scottish, and (more so) English, students the choice of cheap to free uni education across the whole of the EU. Just imagine being English and saving 30-40K by studying in mainland Europe. I’d vote for that!
As an aside, a friend’s nephew is hurrying to get his dual-citizenship so he can do just this.