VAT on imported rib ?

[Pikey Dave]

Originally Posted by Poly

I've never driven on cross-channel ferries. How does it work? Is there a red and green channel to drive through like at the airport? Or are you just supposed to go home and remember to declare it? Presumably some portion of people going through the green channel are 'randomly' stopped to check for illegal goods? Is any part of the system smart enough to know that you went outbound with just a car but returned with a trailer? [presumably if you were stopped this sort of thing might be noticeable to a customs official who is alert enough; or at least the "see we towed it out and brought it back" be part of the clarification for the legitimate holiday maker.]. Are there things that might stand out on a French boat or French trailer to spark the attention of a vigilant customs official like a right-hand door on a Caravan might just attract a second look?

I’ve been towing RIBs backwards & forwards to the continent for around 30 years. We got stopped once in the outbound queue at Portsmouth, by UK police checking that our boat wasn’t a stolen one that we were taking out of the country. We’ve been stopped & searched a couple of times by French police on the return journey, they were checking that we hadn’t looted any relics from the D-Day wrecks we’d been diving. As far as that, nada. I’ve never been stopped on the return (UK) side by customs checking the provenance of the boat. We only ever book one way trips as we don’t know when or where we’ll be returning from. As per usual, it’s all being overthought. If I was the OP, I’d get the details of the boat I’d just bought from the broker. Register it on the SSR, get some stickers made up, go to France armed with said stickers & a rear number plate for the trailer. Put the stickers & number plate on & fetch the thing home. Chances are, the boat already has a French registration number on it somewhere, get the broker to clean it of prior to collecting. Job done.

Ps, no red/green channels on the ferries, every one passes through the same gates.

[Poly]

Originally Posted by Pikey Dave

Ps, no red/green channels on the ferries, every one passes through the same gates.

Is that still the case since the B-word? Actually I don't know - can you still go to Calais and bring back a van full of fags and booze for personal use? Or is it not the rest of the world limits?

[Pikey Dave]

Originally Posted by Poly

Is that still the case since the B-word? Actually I don't know - can you still go to Calais and bring back a van full of fags and booze for personal use? Or is it not the rest of the world limits?

It now gone back to the good old “duty free” days. The limits are pretty generous, though they are different depending on which way you’re going. You can bring around twice as much back to the UK from the EU as you can take to the EU from the UK.
Off the top of my head you can bring back:-
4 litres spirits
18 litres wine
About 40 litres of beer.
Dunno what the tobacco rules are, I hate the stuff.
TBH if you want to bring more than that, you’ve got a problem.
We’ve just returned from 8 weeks in France/Spain/Portugal & brought nowhere near our limits back. Beer & spirits aren’t much cheaper in the EU than here in the UK, in France they can be dearer.