Practical Boat Owner — Greek authorities have drafted new legislation in the way they charge a tax on all boats in their waters – and again the Cruising Association (CA) is working with them to introduce a fair system for all.
The Greek Government brought out the new Cruising tax 18 months ago which imposed a new duty on all private and commercial craft using Greek waters – but the system of paying the tax was never properly introduced.
The tax that meant that yachts and motorboats between 7m and 12m will have to pay up to €400 each year to sail through Greek waters. Vessels of more than 12m will be charged €100 per metre every year with concessions for permanently based yachts of 30% or a choice to pay €10 per metre per month.
At that time the CA negotiated significant changes to the bill and managed to change the way Port Police interacted with yachtsmen – removing the need to report to Port Police except once a year.
The gist of the new legislation is similar to the original tax proposals but has gone back to the basic premise of an annual tax payable from January to December
‘But the first point of contention is that in the rates they have announced, you will see a huge jump between an 11.9 metre boat and a 12.1 metre boat. This rate jump is in my view unacceptable.
‘The Cruising association, as we did last time, will endeavour to co-operate with the Greek Government to produce a fair and easy to pay tax. From the draft bill it appears that everything that we managed to agree last time has been forgotten – with one exception, that under 12 metre boats can pay by the month.
‘There are a lot of unknowns in the draft bill which we will seek to get answers to. We assume that they will try to have this Tax in action by the New Year.’
The Cruising Association, based in Limehouse in London’s Docklands, has been monitoring the situation in Greece as it has almost 1,500 members sailing throughout the islands.
