Purchasing and registering cars in Germany

[drakeo]

I want to buy at least two cars in Germany for personal use. I’m an EU resident but I cannot have cars registered in my home country because I have almost no income on paper here therefore I don’t want to risk registering it here since that could trigger alerts. Ideally I would want to buy and reg the car in Germany.
Idea 1: Holding company on some island -> Company in DE (if required) with a dirt cheap office space in some druggie area (idk). This is in order to get DE license plates -> vehicles would ideally be in some kind of trust structure - Owns all cars I want. -> I rent cars from the company/trust.
Idea 2: If quick and easy: Buy car in Germany -> Buy shithole in DE to become eligible to register car in Germany + Insurance. Would only want to buy one car <60k EUR in my name. So this would only be a short term solution.
Idea 3: Buy in Germany, register in some EU country that can quickly get me plates. Bulgaria was mentioned here but found no info other than their own website.
EVs only I don't care about tax or insurance cost really.

Experiences and thoughts are very appreciated.

 

[JustAnotherNomad]

Sounds like a really stupid idea to buy the car in a country with some of the strictest tax and AML laws. A company would come with a ton of accounting requirements (such as proving the car is actually used for business purposes) and registering it in your own name would trigger tax residency.
Idea 3 sounds like a better idea, ideally some country where residency doesn't trigger tax residency. Or some country where tax residency might even come with tax benefits, such as Cyprus or Portugal.
I've seen lot of expensive cars on Bulgarian and Romanian plates around Europe btw, I've always wondered what that's about...
You could also look into a Swiss verein. Not sure if that can be used for vehicle registration though. I believe it's a person of its own (like a corporation), but as long as it doesn't conduct commercial activity, there's no accounting. I think. A couple of major law firms are organized as a Swiss verein because it gives them a lot of flexibility.

I also think there was a thread about this some time ago where @Martin Everson mentioned companies that rent you the car you want in a tax-efficient way. I don't remember the details, it's typically used for really expensive cars, but maybe something like that could work here, too.

 

[MiltonStone]

It won't work in real live what you plan. Every EU country has their own rules and taxes, buying a car in Germany and import it will apply extra taxes etc.

The fastest place to get plates in Denmark. You walk into a "synshald" with the car and pay the small fee and you get your plates right away.

 

[Willblack]

Do you insist on buying it?
If leasing is an option, in Germany you can "release" a leased car. That should be enough info for ya.

 

[drakeo]

Do you insist on buying it?
If leasing is an option, in Germany you can "release" a leased car. That should be enough info for ya.

Would leasing a car allow me to have permanent DE plates? I don’t lease cars because the mileage limits are dumb and I can afford buying what I want.

Sounds like a really stupid idea to buy the car in a country with some of the strictest tax and AML laws. A company would come with a ton of accounting requirements (such as proving the car is actually used for business purposes) and registering it in your own name would trigger tax residency.
Idea 3 sounds like a better idea, ideally some country where residency doesn't trigger tax residency. Or some country where tax residency might even come with tax benefits, such as Cyprus or Portugal.
I've seen lot of expensive cars on Bulgarian and Romanian plates around Europe btw, I've always wondered what that's about...
You could also look into a Swiss verein. Not sure if that can be used for vehicle registration though. I believe it's a person of its own (like a corporation), but as long as it doesn't conduct commercial activity, there's no accounting. I think. A couple of major law firms are organized as a Swiss verein because it gives them a lot of flexibility.

I also think there was a thread about this some time ago where @Martin Everson mentioned companies that rent you the car you want in a tax-efficient way. I don't remember the details, it's typically used for really expensive cars, but maybe something like that could work here, too.

Thanks for this, yeah would probably be a huge hassle to follow DE laws and regulations.

 

[drakeo]

It won't work in real live what you plan. Every EU country has their own rules and taxes, buying a car in Germany and import it will apply extra taxes etc.

The fastest place to get plates in Denmark. You walk into a "synshald" with the car and pay the small fee and you get your plates right away.

I don’t care about taxes and fees whatsoever. I talked to a guy on skat.dk but he said I need a Danish SSN to register a car in DK. Can't find anything that says otherwise.

 

[JustAnotherNomad]

Would leasing a car allow me to have permanent DE plates? I don’t lease cars because the mileage limits are dumb and I can afford buying what I want.

The car would not be registered to you, but to the leasing company, or to some other person who releases the car to you.
So it should be fine to have plates from whatever country.
However, if you permanently import the car into some other country (=drive it there), then it must be imported and registered there, including paying all the local taxes.
They can even impound the car, even if it's not yours. This is typically the case in countries with high taxes on cars, in most other European countries, they probably won't care as much, but you can't be 100% sure. There's always some risk.

 

[no1d]

If you know someone in Germany, you could register at his address then buy the cars, get the plates and de-register after a while. Even staying registered I don't think it will trigger any tax verification since you don't have anything in Germany, no bank, phone, etc.