I thought this might be helpful if you have major service in Martinique. The Martinique Cruisers Association recently put out a guide clarifying how to have your vessel related purchases exempted from VAT and a few other taxes. I pasted a link to their FB page below. I will upload their document to the files as well.
It costs a bit to get the exemption, but once in place it is good for any purchase you make related to the vessel. I had a complete rerigging performed while here (about 10,000 euro) and also purchased a few thousand in Amel spare parts recommended by Jean Collin the Amel service center here in Le Marin,so it was a no brainer for me. Essentially any boat related purchase is covered. In the process, you receive a duty free number that you present to the vendor and voila! no tax!
Apparently I was the first Amel customer to do this. Jean had to call the customs broker to verify it was legit and how to actually execute the process.. Jean came to the boat the next morning with a big smile on his face to tell me it was all good. This was the first time Amel had done a VAT free transaction here. I think there will be more VAT free Amel purchases in the future.
Caraibe Marine one of the the service providers for Amel already knows about the process and had no issues applying the exemption.
