mfesharne

Here's a start:

Portugal faces courts over car tax on EU imports - The Portugal News

https://primealgarve.wordpress.com/2...into-portugal/

Less related but partly so:

Record fines for foreign registered vehicles

mfesharne

It's there all right and my MP is currently chasing the PSP over the matter because they refused to give me a firearms exam paper in Englsh or allow me to use their own translator that their own office had provided and was waiting for me...... yup, it was crazy but that's what happened.

See "Why Is It Needed"

Here: Official languages of the EU - European Commission

It's also why every GPs surgery & Govt office etc in the UK has documents & forms in umpteen languages.

liveaboard

The portugal news story does not refer to import tax, but to how second hand vehicles are valued for road and registration tax.
The second link is a personal whinge blog [from 6 years ago] that repeats the usual misinformation.

Yes, they almost always make you pay, yes it's a pain, yes the bureaucracy is a disaster; NO, it's not import tax, so it's not illegal.

EMR

It was just a story not a fact.
I coukd not find any links confirming fines.
I looked at the official EU sites. NO MENTION OF FINES.
Yours I believe is regarded as a classic vehicle, a nissan note is obviously not one.

mfesharne

Yes, mine is a classic but that had nothing to do with the discrepancy in the paperwork which was that the original south african registration document showed a fictitious engine number and the engine itself like all other AMC360 5.9 V8s were not numbered at all.

I had to get the SA paperwork amended which then entailed a new document that didn't show I'd owned the car for the required 12 months previously, then a letter from the SA traffic dept confirming their error and that I had owned it for 10 years despite the dodgy date on the new document, then I had to get an engraved metal plate made to show the new engine number the SA TD had given me, that I had to fix to the bulkhead and then a further letter from the traffic dept confirming they considered that solution acceptable.

I also submitted several pics of other classic cars that had the same arrangement for the same reason.

Thankfully it was all accepted and I got the car in free of import tax....... but it was a VERY close run thing! lol

And after all that, the fidiot agent who handled the paperwork then (despite my telling him several times it was a classic) handled it as an ordinary car which resulted in my having to pay €776 for the first year of road tax....... after which, I did what he should have done and got it registered as a car of historical interest to PT and therefore exempt of road tax.

mfesharne

Note the first para:

"The European Commission has formally requested Portugal to amend its legislation on the taxation of imported second-hand vehicles, arguing that vehicles produced elsewhere in the European Union are being discriminated against as a result of the country’s current legislation"

Note the definition of the word 'Tax'

tax
taks/Submit
noun
1.
a compulsory contribution to state revenue, levied by the government on workers' income and business profits, or added to the cost of some goods, services, and transactions.

mfesharne

Note the first para in bold

EU rules Portugal car import tax illegal - The Portugal News

EMR

Did you look at the date of the PT headline

,The PT news story predates the EU decision on the matter which was last year.

Nothing has changed or is likely to in the near future.

mfesharne

So are you suggesting they no longer charge the import tax that was deemed illegal that long ago or is it still being charged?

Which confirms my statement it's been deemed illegal for years & is still being charged!

EMR

It has not been deemed illegal by the EU only by the PT news.

No EU action has been taken other than a referral in 2015.

Red Eric

I can't see why this is proving so difficult to understand when every link so far provided says exactly the same thing ie that what the Commission has objected to is that depreciation of the vehicle is not being taken proper account of when calculating the tax.

Although IA (or ISV) is undeniably a tax, it is not an import tax, even if the Portugal News or other news outlets sloppily refer to it as such. Tax is perfectly legal within the EU, import tax for goods sourced from other member states is not. This is not an import tax, therefore it is not illegal and can be charged with the full blessing of the EU. Here is a link to a relevant page of the European Commission website, which says It even goes on to give a specific scenario, citing Portugal as an example.

Red Eric

Your link says nothing of the sort.

It says that EU citizens have a right access all EU documents in the official language(s) of the Commission, and should be able to write to the Commission and receive a response in their own language. Nothing at all about what language member states must publish information in and certainly no requirement from the EU or the EC that all official publications, forms etc be made available in all languages.

Anything the UK continues to do on that score after Eric Pickles' clampdown on local authorities* is entirely of its own volition, will cover all languages (not just EU languages) and is nothing to do with EU directives.

* Here is an excerpt from his written statement of March 2013
“Stop translating documents into foreign languages: only publish documents in English. Translation undermines community cohesion by encouraging segregation. Similarly, do not give community grants to organisations which promote segregation or division in society.”

mfesharne

FFS. It says: "EU citizens have the right to access all EU documents in the official languages of the commission" which to me and incidentally also to my MP & his support team, means that all official Govt documents should be available in all EU member state languages.

Those same language rules incidentally are why you can insist on an English speaking police officer when stopped by the cops here.

Your link incidentally refers to a speech by a politician....... nothing more.

mfesharne

European Commission - PRESS RELEASES - Press release - Frequently asked questions on languages in Europe

Does EU law protect the use of languages?
EU rights and obligations regarding languages are safeguarded by European law. For example, the EU Treaty (Article 3) and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (Articles 21 & 22) prohibit discrimination on grounds of language and state that the Union shall respect linguistic diversity.

The first Community Regulation, passed in 1958, requires the Community institutions to translate legislation into all official EU languages, as well as to reply to inquiries from citizens in the same language as the inquiry (Article 2, also Articles 20 & 24 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union).

Red Eric

Really? To me it means exactly what it says, which is nothing like the interpretation you have put on it.