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Order Options separately for Tax incentives

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Hi,

The Portuguese government is offering incentives for electric vehicles (deduction of VAT - 23%, old vehicle trade in -4500€, no registration fees/tax, etc).


However these incentives are only valid for cars that cost up to 62.500€.
The base Model S 70 right now costs 62.400€ in the EU store, so it would be eligible.


I asked Tesla if it would be possible to pay for the car, get the invoice and pay for Options separately.
That way maybe it would still be eligible for the tax deductions, since the extras would not be part of the car invoice.

They told me no right away on the phone, but I'm wondering if you know of any way to do this?

Is it possible to ask to pay upfront before it goes into production, get the invoice, and then call and say "changed my mind I want to add options".

Thanks.
 
So you're trying to illegally avoid paying taxes?

How is it illegal? I am taking advantage of the incentives on the car, which is legal.

But I wanted to get some extra Options, and would pay taxes on those as required.

The car model doesn't change, only some of the options change the car model and I'm not talking about those.

The Options would take the car above the limit, and it would not be strange if Tesla had a way to invoice them separately.

Also, it is possible to get some of them as a retrofit, but that would be dumb. This is just an invoicing detail, I don't see anything illegal about it.
 
Max*, that's a bit harsh. Trying to game the system vs illegally ignoring the system are two entirely different thought processes.

To answer TiagoFreitas's question: I think you would have to buy the base S70 model, take delivery, and then go back to the service center and ask to pay for upgrades. While technically possible, I suspect that the extra costs involved would totally negate the tax savings.
 
How is it illegal? I am taking advantage of the incentives on the car, which is legal.

No it's not. You want to buy a car that costs more than €62,500 and get Tesla to help you produce fraudulent paperwork so that you can falsely claim tax incentives that are only available on cars that cost less than €62,500.

This is clearly tax evasion which in most countries is a criminal offence.

If you want to use the incentives, buy a car that costs less than €62,500.
 
Just get the base model, it is quite well equipped these days. Later you can add auto pilot if you want. Perhaps a dash trim, which you could probably do yourself if you can figure out the part numbers to order. Perhaps dual chargers if you have access to 80 amp ev chargers there. Not much else would be worth retrofitting.
 
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Max*, that's a bit harsh. Trying to game the system vs illegally ignoring the system are two entirely different thought processes.

See response below yours, mgboyes explained it better than I was about to.

It's clearly illegal, it's not gaming the system. I'm all for finding loopholes and minimizing the amount of taxes/fees I have to pay, this isn't a legal loophole.
 
See response below yours, mgboyes explained it better than I was about to.

It's clearly illegal, it's not gaming the system. I'm all for finding loopholes and minimizing the amount of taxes/fees I have to pay, this isn't a legal loophole.
Actually it is
OP can purchase a stock Model S and later pay for options such as autopilot, next gen seats and some others that can be retrofitted
nothing about that is illegal
 
Which options were you planning on purchasing? If you're saving 23% at a purchase price of 62,400, that's a savings of 14,352 euros. Nothing to sneeze at! You can take delivery of the base car and retrofit items such as seats, autopilot, upgrade the sound system (aftermarket), add dual chargers and still come out ahead. If you want Pano and Air Suspension, you're out of luck.
 
Actually it is
OP can purchase a stock Model S and later pay for options such as autopilot, next gen seats and some others that can be retrofitted
nothing about that is illegal

The OP was clear that they wanted to order a base car and then add options to the config before it went into build, so that it would be delivered with those options already fitted.

Doing this while asking the supplier to generate two invoices - one for the base car and one for the options - in order to falsely claim the price of the vehicle at delivery was lower than a certain threshold, would be tax evasion.

Retrofitting items to the car after it is built, paid for and delivered is of course a completely different situation - in that case Tesla would invoice for the supply of the base car, supply it, and then later the owner would ask for retrofits.

Autopilot, dual chargers and fancy wheels are easy and cheap to retrofit. Next-gen seats are relatively pricey to retrofit in the US (and this service may not be available at all in the OP's market, or on a car that was ordered after NG seats became available). All other options AFAIK you are out of luck.

(And of course I have not read the terms of qualification for this Portuguese tax break - there may be restrictions covering just this sort of thing anyway).
 
That there is a legal difference between those two things, invoicing the options separately before production versus after production as a retrofit, is rather silly and goes against the spirit of the law in my opinion, which is to gives incentives to the purchase of electric cars.

In terms of results for the government, those two options give the exact same result: no taxes for the basecar, and taxes as appropriate on the options.
There is no difference in taxes to pay, the only difference is in what is paid to Tesla and the efficiency of the whole process.

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Anyway it may not even be possible to get a base Tesla with incentives currently, because Tesla charges 370€ for a "Destination and Regulatory Fee", which pushes the total 270€ above the limit to get incentives.

So I will have to check if these fees are considered part of the acquisition cost or not.

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Hopefully when Tesla opens a store in Portugal they will realise the advantages to having the total at the legal limit for incentives...