Yesterday morning I was dropping the kids to school, dont do it often but more often as of late. Had just parked in the car park when two customs officers approached asking about the car. Here in Ireland, any foreign car brought in has to have duty paid and Irish number plates issued within 24 hours of arriving in the country ! Well nearly 4 months on I guess I was asking for trouble . To be fair to the custom guys they were entitled to sieze the car there and then but gave me 7 days to pay the duty (about 2000 euro) and get the new reg. The customs guys were fine and I cant fault them , it would be easy to say something bad about them but no, there was no hassle or anything. So I'm off now to pay the duty and get the new plates made up.

Regards,

Brian

Did someone grass you up?

2000 bucks???

OMG. And they say that living in the UK is expensive. How can they justify the cost?

No I dont think anyone grassed me, well I hope not. Its not exactly a Q car so I guess they noticed it a while ago and then decided to do something about it, I was taking the pi55 a bit after 4 months !

If you dont live permenantly in Ireland I would say the actions of the customs guys are illegal in view of the European law about the freedom of movement of people, goods, and money.

fat_boy, you would probably be right, but I do live here permanently, always have, always will

I know a guy that has a car in Ireland on UK plates for years. He says he puts on an English accent if he gets pulled (he might also have a UK licence)!

Must have serious problems with the tax & insurance?

Customs are seriously hot on non Irish reg cars around Limerick/Shannon/Ennis and people are regularly pulled and or questioned.

I understand you can import a car from the UK to Ireland with no tax to pay, if you've lived in the UK for at least 6 months and owned the car for at least that time as well.

As regards tax and insurance that's fine if you're "visiting". LEman was stretching the concept with 4 months!!

I dread to think what Irish coopsters pay in insurance - there isnt much competition in IRL.

I'm 44 with full NCD, €100 excess and pay €1000 with everything & class 2 business.

Oh that has gotta hurt!

33, in the UK, 5 yrs NCD, £444

About £600, but the business bit, 3 named drivers and small excess whacks it up..I was quoted €600 with limited mileage, €500 excess and named driver only.

Duty has to be paid on any imported car..if you are a resident in the state ie a taxpayer with a PPS number.

If you are interested (really?) then:

http://www.revenue.ie/services/vrt/vrt_quot.htm

Quote from the Irish Revenue Services web site:

"When a Motor Vehicle is being imported from outside the EU it is liable to Value Added Tax (VAT) and Common Customs Tariff (CCT) known as Customs duty. VAT and CCT are payable at the point of importation. Vehicle Registration Tax (VRT) is payable within 24 hours of arrival in the State."

So, as the car is an import from within the EU, €2000 is Vehicle Registration Tax then?

Phew.

Pete

They are pretty hot on this. According to the rules any vehicle in the state must pay duty somewhere and its illegal to hold an unregisted vehicle. When I was trying to arrange the import of Malaysian Coupes to UK they were coming to Ireland first for service/belts/tyre changes.
Even though they were for re-export the Revenue insisted on full payment of import duty (€10,000 each)which had to be 'reclaimed' once I could prove they had been exported abroad. Instant payment to the State naturally, and 3 months to process the rebate.

The whole thing finally fell apart over Revenue refusal to accept the Malaysian Cert of Conformity and insisting on a new one from Fiat. Then we discovered that the Coupe doesn't meet current EU emission specs for new cars and would need a complex and expensive (of course..this is Ireland) SVA process, done in the UK which Ireland doesn't recognise anyway.

GAHHHH!

you can import the car to ireland with no tax if you have been living outside for 183 days ie you were resident in the uk in the eyes of the revenue but you have to keep the car for one year and no one else in the country can drive it bar yourself and if someone else is caught driving it the vrt is payable.when it comes to cars in ireland we are just ripped off everywhere we turn labour,parts,vrt etc etc

They have to money from somewhere to keep the roads surfaced in such an immaculate condition over there!!

i can show you a lot of roads that aint surfaced to well and a couple of dents in my alloys of the years