Hi all,
It seems there is a law that allows you not to pay VAT for your apartment rental if you have a family of 5 or more (two adults and three children).

I heard it only recently and I am pissed of on the person whom I rented the apartment from that claimed this is not true when I first asked him this question two and a half years ago.

Does anyone knows:
1) Is it true?
2) WHAT do you need to do in order to get the money?
3) Can you get re-funding for the period of time you already been in the apartment?


Help will be more then thankful here!!!

I'm curious of when and how do you pay VAT on a rental? Is it part of the rent?

There's no VAT on rentals. I never heard of any VAT reduction for large families. There must be confusion somewhere.

Check Xpats.com Q&A - if you have 3 kids for example, your landlord gets a 30% rebate on the tax he has to pay on his rental profits, which he's then supposed to pass back to you. You begin by contacting your tax office and asking whether he's filed and paid taxes for the rental of your property.

Definitely a strange way to save money. Where do they get this information? And who are the newcomers they are talking about? Surely it can't be Americans as they are usually completely unaware of what is beyond the East and West Coasts. I'm not American bashing as I'm American myself but let's face the facts. Do other American expats find that they are so much more in touch with news from the entire world now that they are expats?

I agree that there seems to be more ind-depth international news coverage in Europe than in the US, but I think that it's partly because Europe is made up of so many different countries--it's inevitable that news coverage will be more international. In the US truly global news isn't necessarily fed to the public on the evening news broadcasts, but it certainly is available. Those people who are interested, and there are plenty of us, know to get it on NPR and other Public Broadcasting News programs. And surely the internet has revolutionized the news industry. How easy is it now to click on <a href="http://www.karachi.com" Target="_BLANK">www.karachi.com</a> and find out what happened there today? But I confess to still not being very knowledgeable about what goes on in every African country and every Asian country. (Now how did we get here from VAT on apartments?)

Keep taking the pills, Kew

Hic%%%

Raquel why <a href="http://www.karachi.com" Target="_BLANK">www.karachi.com</a> ?? Methinks <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk" Target="_BLANK">http://news.bbc.co.uk</a>/ would be a better choice.

??? It was just an example of how easy it is to get info/news from anywhere in the world.

Just an example ???? How could you ????? Karachi ???!!!!!! I am soooo upset, I am pouting !!!!!!!

She's having a nervous breakdown. Okay, okay, it's <a href="http://www.bombay" Target="_BLANK">www.bombay</a>. com from now on.

Thank God for small mercies !