TheYachtAttorney, was the leading law firm in Dalmatia that has achieved the most established yacht imports under the 5% VAT- scheme prior to recent accession of Croatia to the EU.
TheYachtAttorney
No law firm has brought more yachts from temporarily bonded import to fully taxed import under the limited 5% VAT import-tax and reflagged the yachts than TheYachtAttorney.
Prof. Dr. Christoph Schließmann and his Croatian partner Dean Rahan have successfully established nearly a dozen new and used yachts between 60 and 100 feet under the unique and limited access to special import VAT bonus offer for Yacht owners.
The unique slot to a Croatian Import Flat Tax for non-Croatia flagged yachts of EU citizens was limited between January 31 and May 31. A similar slot, there will be no more.
The offer was made for all yachts being brought to the 31/05/13 in the so-called “temporary bonded import”. With legal clarification end of June, 2013, this could also be new yachts that have been imported in Croatia at the last minute.
The Ministry of Maritime Affairs in Croatia justified this concept launched with surprise of many experts in a letter to Christoph Schließmann: “Likewise, fact is, that owners of such vessels are, for the most part, long-time guests and users of maritime infrastructure facilities of the Republic of Croatia, to a certain extent, given their contribution to the development of this infrastructure, and hereby the development of the Republic of Croatia. Taking his into consideration, the Government … has to find a model that would make it possible to place such vessels under Croatian flag under the best possible circumstances and in conformity with the positive legislation of Croatia and EU.”
We can state, so Christoph Schließmann, that the process of importing and reflagging such vessels to Croatia was a long and sometimes chaotic process because nearly every week the administrative authorities as the Ministries (5 involved) surprised by new executing regulations and the locals operatives often did not know about and were highly overwhelmed in executing and handling. Up to the last minute on May 31, there were some residual risks, one could not calculate, especially the highly discussed question of reflagging. The crux was, that the minimum VAT in EU is 15%. The Croatian 5% import tax was not based on EU import tax. It was Croatian tax law before the EU accession. So we were convinced, that all related vessels had to apply for Croatian flag as well to become overnight to 1.7. EU tax arrested.
