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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Marketplace => Topic started by: alenppc on May 11, 2006, 05:20:42 AM
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This is a tip, from my experience, for people selling their Amiga hardware internationally.
If you have never sold or bought hardware from abroad, you really have to consider that the person buying the product will be hit by (possibly very high) import duties. Selling between EU countries doesn't count as there are no cross-border fees, but if you are selling from/to any other nation please consider this:
- When sending your parcel be sure to clearly mark it as a Gift even if you do receive payment for it. When you fill out the customs form make sure to tick the relevant box.
- The declared value is normally useless, because even if you declare it worth $50,000 and the parcel gets lost in the post internationally THEY WILL NOT REFUND YOU. Instead they'll blame the post office of the other country. The declared value is simply there to allow the customs to calculate the import duties.
Now, this (the commercial value declaration) is a requirement when buying NEW merchandise over the internet, in this case you are not paying the origin country's taxes (VAT) but you pay your own country's taxes.
For example if I buy a DVD from Amazon.co.uk I am only charged the price before VAT, so the cost is actually the advertised price less 17% (or whatever the UK tax is) and then when I receive the parcel I am charged a 15% local tax on the top of the sale price + some customs handling fees.
But in our case, let's say that you want to be very "honest" and let the customs charge the person who is buying the product their local duties; consider that most of the Amiga hardware sold is used, which means that you already paid the tax at the time of purchase in your country of origin.
This obviously depends on individual laws, and I am no lawyer but I think that in most cases taxes should NOT be charged on used products as they already charged you when you bought the product when it was new.
So the bottom line is: what do you have to gain by declaring a high commercial value on such a shipment? You won't get anything out of it and the person receiving the parcel will have to pay a pointless surcharge and not everybody can afford it! The best thing is to declare that the parcel has NO commercial value -- or 0.
As an example of such stupidity I can mention the case when I bought what I thought was a used PCMCIA card (but it turned out to be an incompatible piece of junk). The seller was in the US and charged me US$5 for the card. Unfortunately he also declared a value of $50 on the parcel which in turn meant that I had to pay around $15 of import duties (taxes+handling), which was basically three times as much as I paid for the card in the first place! I managed to get the problem resolved, and Canada Customs eventually refunded my money, but not everybody is so lucky.
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All good stuff listed above...
And it's worth noting on the last point that some countries have a cut-off where any items below a certain stated value won't attract further taxes. It might be worth informing the seller of your country's particular limit and asking them to put the value at lower than this.
On the flip side, what happens if the package is stopped by customs, opened and they find that the 4Gb CF card you ordered is actually worth more than the stated $5?
- Ali
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- When sending your parcel be sure to clearly mark it as a Gift even if you do receive payment for it. When you fill out the customs form make sure to tick the relevant box.
No.
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Why not?
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Other tips:
1. Payment: ask for cash in advance payment for 1st time customer.
If a customer make a "unsual" large order, ask for cash payment in advance.
There are many case involving frauds, stolen credit cards, western union, etc.
2. In several countries there are foreign currency restriction, rapid exchange rate movement.
3. Shipment: because of custom problems, it is almost impossible to ship goods directly to several countries. It's better to use transhipment / smuggler.
4. Local post service in several countries are unreliable. Many valuable items are missing from international packages. It's better to use courier service.
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being that i work for usps and formally fed-ex, it is illegal to mark a fasle classifications on your package or parcel. but i wont tell if you wont ;-)
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@bark40oz
FedEx is sniffing for DVDs (http://www.spacegrinder.com/article8.html) these days.
Really cool ;-)
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@Piru
Eeeew, I'm going to post this one at Whyzzat (http://www.whyzzat.com)!
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@redrumloa
I got it from slashdot (http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/06/05/10/2331237.shtml)
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I read it days ago on Yahoo! too :lol:
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sorry but i don't beleive that a dog, is able to recognize a DVD inside to whatever thing. Others various substances ok but a DVD!?! no way.
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Why not?
because that would by lying? wouldnt it?
if people buy off a person in another country it is up to them to understand the various import laws of said country. why should a person lie in order to give another person a cheaper deal?
It is nice when items sent abroad are labeled as a gift, however whether a seller chooses to label it as such or not should not reflect on the sellers reputation.
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InTheSand wrote:
All good stuff listed above...
On the flip side, what happens if the package is stopped by customs, opened and they find that the 4Gb CF card you ordered is actually worth more than the stated $5?
- Ali
Well, with up-to-date hardware this might be tricky.
But, with old Amiga stuff, it's not really an issue. The possibility of the customs officer even knowing what a Zorro card is, is pretty slim. And if he/she is an Amigan, then he/she will probably decide to give a fellow Amigan a break. ('Commodore?!? This junk must be 20 years old???')
Basically:
"Old computer parts, value 10 EUR"
Customs officer to co-worker: 'Look! somebody's bought some old ISA graphics card... why does he even bother? Wouldn't it be easier to get some old junk like this from a dumpster? He sure could do better for 10 EUR... (laughs)'
And the board in question could be a 250 EUR Picasso-IV...
Anyways, the limits in Norway are 200 NOK (25 EUR/17 GBP/33 USD) for purchases and 500 NOK (63 EUR/42 GBP/83 USD) for gifts. Shipments with a value lower than these limits, go through for free.
So if you buy a DVD for 199 NOK, the total cost is:
199 NOK + no taxes/fees = 199 NOK
But if it costs 201 NOK, you have to pay 25% VAT and some customs handling fees.
201 NOK + 50 NOK VAT + 70(ish) NOK fee = 321 NOK
Makes sense, doesn't it?
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Piru wrote:
FedEx is sniffing for DVDs (http://www.spacegrinder.com/article8.html) these days.
Pfff, just send another package full of doggie biscuits to draw their attention from the DVDs :idea:
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What you are proposing is called "tax evasion" in my country. I don't know what they call it in your neck of the woods but I'm pretty sure they have a similar term. I'm pretty sure when caught both parties are punished. Not worth it IMHO.
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nadoom wrote:
because that would by lying? wouldnt it?
Lesser of two evils, as PaSha has just pointed out, tax laws can be completely preposterous, further, tax can't be charged on an item more than once, that's why it's paid by the person receiving the goods and not the person selling the goods, as outlined in the original post. Thus what the governments are doing charging us tax for used Amiga components (or any pre-bought stuff which has already had duty paid on it) is plain and simple robbery.
I suppose it might be 'unfortunate' to some of the more moraly minded out there that we have to lie to get around their attempts to fleece us, I would have no qualms about doing so.
@ acottrill: 'I say avoision! It's in the dictionary look it up.' LOL seriously though, as the OP said - duty is only payable once on any given goods, no more, no less.
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"The duty is only payable once on any given goods, no more, no less." He muttered as the Judge slammed down his gavel...
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Well I obviously don't know about US laws, maybe they're messed up and allow the govt to charg over and over, but I'm pretty sure St. Blair can't do that to us, he can only pay the judges with discreet brown envelopes in order to give the ruling he wants.
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oh yeah...Taxes are levied on goods repeatedly and all levels of government in the US. the basic rule in the US is "every time money and/or goods change hands the government gets a piece of the action" Here are a few examples...
at the federal level:
my dad has worked all his life to build a very successful chain of auto parts stores. He's paid revenue taxes, all this time. we have had to do some significant estate planning to insure that when he dies we will be able to pay the estate tax (death tax) without selling off all the assets.
at the state level:
when I buy a new car I pay a sales tax based on the purchase price. in order to operate the vehicle on the road I have to pay an annual excise tax to maintain my vehicle registration. when I sell the vehicle the buyer has to pay a sales tax. when he sells it the next buyer pays a sales tax.
and my favorite, at the county level...
every time a home is sold an excise tax is paid to the county. next to the commission you pay to the realtor (if you use one) it's the largest cost to the seller in the purchase/sale process.
and with all of these taxes we don't have socialized medicine. maybe we need to start charging import duties on packages entering the US so we can raise our standard of care :roll:
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but the cool thing is this, a gift is a gift and if thats what it says on the form thats what it has to be. i think its partly a moral thing and also the "i dont wanna have to pay more for what i just paid for" idea.
like i said a gift is a gift.
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InTheSand wrote:
On the flip side, what happens if the package is stopped by customs, opened and they find that the 4Gb CF card you ordered is actually worth more than the stated $5?
Well nothing's going to happen, because the parcels are usually open to check that there are no illegal items such as drugs/weapons present inside. For all they know it just as well be a gift. It's not illegal.
Mind you, the parcel containing the A600 I bought from the UK was marked as containing "books", it was opened and closed at customs, they didn't really care.
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When sending your parcel be sure to clearly mark it as a Gift even if you do receive payment for it. When you fill out the customs form make sure to tick the relevant box.
I totally agree on this one. I live in a country"Norway" where you have insane high import duties and you also have to pay a insane fee just to have the customs calculate the duties.
Since we are not a member of EU, we have to even pay when importing from EU countries :-(
Anything over 200nok"25euro" will be affected by this. The funny part is that the amount has been the same since the 70s, and then the 200nok was worth much more than it is today. There has been alot of debate about raising the limit, but so far the government has been to greed to do anything about it, since they earn alot of money on it.
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acottrill wrote:
What you are proposing is called "tax evasion" in my country. I don't know what they call it in your neck of the woods but I'm pretty sure they have a similar term. I'm pretty sure when caught both parties are punished. Not worth it IMHO.
Well, i dont see how the seller can get punished for this. And it is also impossible for them to find out if it is really a gift or not. And is it really right that i should pay twice the damn price if i buy something costing just a tad more than 25euros?? It makes it impossible for me to buy anything from other countries.
And afaik you can send the package pretty anonymousely anyways..
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Marco wrote:
I suppose it might be 'unfortunate' to some of the more moraly minded out there that we have to lie to get around their attempts to fleece us, I would have no qualms about doing so.
Well said.
'The public doesn't know anything about wasting public money. We are the experts.'
-- Sir Humphrey ("Yes, Minister")
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Tomas wrote:
Well, i dont see how the seller can get punished for this. And it is also impossible for them to find out if it is really a gift or not. And is it really right that i should pay twice the damn price if i buy something costing just a tad more than 25euros?? It makes it impossible for me to buy anything from other countries.
And afaik you can send the package pretty anonymousely anyways..
No one will get punished for anything unless you live in a totalitarian regime. Besides, if the buyer wants to pay import duties, all he/she has to do is phone the customs and say "I want to pay customs for a package I received". Believe me, they won't say no even if it's utterly worthless. :roll:
I mean, if we Amigans can't help ourselves who can we help?
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@bark40oz
FedEx is sniffing for DVDs these days.
Really cool
Awwwwww! Look at the little cute poochy-woochies....
Sorry, I, ahem, like dogs okay?
Oh and:
"United Kingdom, Los Angeles - - The Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT), express delivery company FedEx and HM Revenue & Customs, has joined forces to launch an exciting new initiative to help combat DVD piracy.
Since when has the UK been in LA?
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InTheSand wrote:
For all they know it just as well be a gift. It's not illegal.
It is illegal. They just won't know.
--
moto
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AmigaMance wrote:
Why not?
Well, if the seller does not send parcels very often, it probably won't matter at all. But if he's a regular e-bay seller and he uses the same post office to send various 'gifts' all over the world, it would draw attention sooner or later. I'm not sure what would happen if the post officers get suspicious though. I don't think there's actually a way that they can prove the items are not a gift, too much hassle to prove the payment.
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as PaSha has just pointed out, tax laws can be completely preposterous
Saying that taxes kick in at a certain amount doens't make them preposterous. Looks like his government was giving the little guy a break with that 200/500 maximum. They had to kick in somewhere. Doing an example like his is what is called demogogery. (No, I never thought I could use that word ever, either.)
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weirdami wrote:
as PaSha has just pointed out, tax laws can be completely preposterous
Saying that taxes kick in at a certain amount doens't make them preposterous. Looks like his government was giving the little guy a break with that 200/500 maximum. They had to kick in somewhere. Doing an example like his is what is called demogogery. (No, I never thought I could use that word ever, either.)
I am ok with paying some taxes for more expensive stuff, but the limits of 200NOK is way to low and has not been changed in over 30 years. 200NOK in the 70s was more like 1500nok today.
Not only do you have to pay taxes, but you also to pay insane amounts just for the cutsoms to handle the item, which makes it so not worth it as it will become way more expensive than buying this said item here in norway.