My favourite car buying statistic is the difference between Bentley and Bugatti owners;
On average people who buy a Bentley already own 8 cars.
On average people who buy a Bugatti already own 84 cars.
Some cars just aren't bought to be driven around. They're works of art and collector's toys; they're not cars as any normal person would consider them.
(https://www.businessinsider.com/this-is-the-shocking-differe...)
> Bugatti customer has about 84 cars, 3 jets and one yacht
A 1959 Ferrari for example was sold for $18 million.
Yacht is a purpose classification, there are little boats in my local habour that a couple of old people drive out into the open water every weekend in the summer, and then there's something like Britannia, the ex-Royal Yacht that is a permanent floating museum in Edingburgh. Both are yachts because they are (or in Britannia's case were) for the pleasure use of the owners rather than being military, transport or for any commercial purpose.
So it's not difficult _at all_ to spend $100M on a yacht, whereas it's pretty tricky to do that for a car.
Worse, unlike cars as yachts grow more expensive a staff becomes at first a good idea and then essential - even if you barely use it you may be spending $1M plus per year on staff.
Or maybe first customer for a new car brand, e.g. Benny Caiola
Which points to these not being well-considered deeply researched purchases. So I can see instagram playing a pretty big role.
Come to think of it I recall there being a (gender neutral!) quote that provides sound financial advice regarding all three...
So you can dream of being able to drop X million to own a dream of being on a yacht all the time. Then you realize you're not on it all the time, because you have a life, and whether you're on it or not you're dropping close to X million a year to keep the crew on hand and keep the yacht ready, and if you want to offset that, you're now running a yacht charter business.
No.
I suppose it's possible to claim yacht expenses as business expenses for things like entertaining clients, etc, and in some cases that might be quite legitimate. But I don't think people get away with nearly as much tax avoidance shenanigans as most people think - The tax man isn't that stupid and trying to claim that sort of use for luxury products is just asking for an audit.
It might be different for super-yachts with really high yearly costs, but for the under 100 ft category of pleasure yachts that cost 10-30k per year upkeep I don't think the net benefit would be worth the complexity. At least for those _trying_ to play honestly. I'm pretty sure every lawyer/dentist/doctor etc that owns one asks their accountant the same type of question, but I don't believe most bother setting it up like that.
source: I own a pleasure craft/yacht big enough to charter regularly to offset the ownership costs, but don't do it on the advice of my accountant.
It all depends on how tangled a web you weave.
For example, this case only came to light due to a leak via Paradise Papers: https://www.businessinsider.com/how-lewis-hamilton-avoided-p...
IIRC it was drag racers or something similar.
IE: the IRS is probably into such schemes and taxes are generally lower.
Not so in a lot of EU countries.
I doubt yachts are given much thought by the German or Austrian tax authorities.
I have lived in Florida around boats all of my life. There are quite a few yachts 55' and longer that have a legal entity registered on Sunbiz (http://search.sunbiz.org/Inquiry/CorporationSearch/ByName) and a sign that says they are available for charter. This sign never comes out of storage.
I don't know any details but always wonder about this... an easy-to-move super-expensive asset, physically in Cannes but legally in the Bahamas... there must be many schemes.
But....if you keep buying loads of cars from Lamborghini, eventually you will end up on a list of people who get to put a deposit for brand new cars that haven't even been announced yet. And if you get an opportunity to do that, then you do that. Because then you get to buy cars like the Centenario, like the Reventon, like the Veneno - and you can be 100% certain that those will go only up in price regardless of what their sticker price is.
>The guess in the industry is that those people literally see an article or an ad for a new Lambo(or whatever) and they just buy one on an impulse.
The same thing happens on the bottom of the price spectrum too. When cars like the Focus RS and Civic Type R came out, people were gladly putting down $10k+ over MSRP (which was already around $35k) without ever leaving the lot, all for a souped up economy car. I don't think it has anything to do with having so much money that someone doesn't care, it's the auto enthusiast mindset of knowing exactly what you want.
I already had a WRX I was trading on it, but still. It was kind of neat buying it like that.
Well, okay...
In my experience of owners, including myself, people are super precious about their WRXs and they are pampered and fawned over beyond all reason. Mine was festooned with aftermarket parts, stickers, lighting, sound upgrade and DVD, noisy muffler etc.
OTOH, my STI is more of a 'no fucks' style tool, no mods, not even a sticker. Great car, probably way too much car for me if I'm honest, but safe and predictable. Just fast. Was nice to get one straight off the truck, 8 miles on the ODO.
And if anyone doubts the mettle on one of these, take a look at the following showing a not heavily modified standard car: https://youtu.be/mejMde6z1Nw?t=861 [Top 20 Finish in a WRC Event - Almost Unheard Of!!]