Is a Ferrari with 510 kilometers on the clock a new car or a second-hand one?

It is a Ferrari F12 6.3 Berlinetta with a new price of 474,917 euros in the Netherlands. The man bought the fast car in Germany for 284,705.89 euros and paid more than 70,000 euros in tax (bpm) after import into the Netherlands. But the tax authorities think that 41,572 euros is too little.

The purchase already took place in 2016, but legal proceedings have been ongoing until this week about when you can speak of a new car. According to the law, this is the case if a car ‘has hardly been used on the road after manufacture’. The question is therefore whether the Ferrari had already toured extensively on foreign roads before registration in the Netherlands.

The owner believes that with 510 kilometers you can certainly speak of a used car, because it is an exclusive and expensive car that is usually driven little. The Tax and Customs Administration believes that the number of kilometers is so low that the car had to be seen as new when it was first admitted to the Netherlands.

The car was first registered in Italy on August 4, 2016 and the license plate was deregistered shortly after, on September 19. The Dutch owner bought the car on October 26, 2016 and according to the invoice, the car had driven 198 kilometers by then. The Ferrari was only registered in the Netherlands on 4 May 2017. At that time the counter was at 510.

The District Court of the Northern Netherlands initially sympathized with the car enthusiast and reduced the additional amount to be paid to more than 10,000 euros. But the tax authorities appealed and in a judgment published today, the Court of Appeal agreed with the tax authorities: the Ferrari driver has not made it plausible that the sports car had already been extensively driven abroad, so the Ferrari is considered new. Six years after the purchase, the 41,572 euros must still be paid.

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