Tax expert: Bernie Ecclestone may face ‘sizeable’ tax bill over luxury car sale
The Formula One mogul, Bernie Ecclestone, is set to sell 69 cars from his luxury collection believed to be worth more than £250m, but he may face a hefty tax bill warned a tax adviser.
Ecclestone will put his luxury collection up for sale, including the Ferraris of Michael Schumacher, Niki Lauda and Mike Hawthorn, models from Ecclestone’s former team Brabham, and a Vanwall VW10 driven by Stirling Moss.
Ecclestone, who ran F1 for four decades until 2017 when Liberty Media took over, has selected British dealer Tom Hartley Jnr to handle the sale.
He told the press: “I love all of my cars but the time has come for me to start thinking about what will happen to them should I no longer be here, and that is why I have decided to sell them.”
“After collecting and owning them for so long, I would like to know where they have gone and not leave them for my wife to deal with should I not be around,” he added.
However, a tax adviser from Moore Kingston Smith warned that Ecclestone’s car sale could bring more tax woe to the mogul.
Partner Guy Sterling explained that “although there is an exemption from capital gains tax for the sale of a passenger car suitable for road use, this relief excludes racing cars.”
“Ecclestone could therefore be facing a sizeable capital gains tax bill on the sale of his collection.”
Rates increased in the most recent Budget so HMRC could be driving away with £24m for every £100m of gain,” he added.
This comes after the 94 year old plead guilty to fraud charges last year, after failing to declare more than £400m held in a trust in Singapore to the government.
He was charged by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) back in 2022 after it reviewed evidence from HMRC.
He was handed a 17-month suspended sentence, which was suspended for two years, and ordered to pay hundreds of millions of pounds. Before his guilty plea, he was due to face a trial last November.